cross posted from MarstonChronicles.info One only has to look around to see that some people have a great deal of wealth and some people are desperately poor. Is this fair? After all, the wealthy have more money than they can ever use so why not take some of their excess money and give it to the poor who need it so much? Since the wealthy clearly do not give enough to charity, why not harness the power of the federal government to force a more equitable distribution of the wealth? Before we can answer that question we need to determine why some people have more money than other people in the first place. In order to justify seizing this "excess" wealth which Obama thinks should be making more than $250,000 a year, we need to determine that the wealthy came by their wealth unjustly. We need to determine that they stole it directly or indirectly by taking unfair advantage of other people. Most of all we need to determine that everyone is equally talented at making money as everyone else. If the explanation is that for the most part, the wealthy simply are better at managing money than poor people then even if we take their excess money and give it to the poor, in a relatively short period of time, the more talented people at making money will soon be the wealthy people again and the poor people will revert to being poor once they have spent the money the government gave them and be no better off than they were before. This in turn forces us to look at the uneven distribution of talent in general among our population. Some people are more athletically talented than others and make the big leagues. Others are better singers, dancers, mathematicians, etc. Unlike money, we cannot force an even redistribution of those kinds of talents. You are either good at something or you are not. Granted you can practice and become better at most things but some people just seem to be more gifted than others at just about anything you care to name. The only way to adjust for this uneven distribution is to deliberately handicap the more talented by playing favorites with the less talented. We see this in things like little leagues and even admission to colleges where everyone gets a chance to play regardless of their talent. The technical name for this attempt to force an even distribution of talent is egalitarianism. The uneven distribution of talent we see in the real world must be compensated for in the name of simple fairness or justice. Everyone should be just as good as everyone else at everything. The question then is how this well this tendency towards egalitarianism works in the real world. A simple example will suffice to determine this. Some people are more talented at doing schoolwork than others. It may be that they are smarter or work harder or are driven just to be good at everything. Other people may be lazy or simply just not motivated enough to be good at schoolwork in addition to perhaps being less talented at doing it in the first place. Still this is manifestly unfair so let's see how we can adjust for this in practice. A new teacher comes into the classroom who is determined to right this manifest wrong. Since everyone should be equal to everyone else, he gives a "C" grade to everyone regardless of how good or how poorly a student performs. It does not take a doctorate in psychology to figure out what the effects of such a policy will have. The good students think to themselves that they busted their butts to get a good grade and all they got was a "C" so what is the point of continuing to put in the extra effort? They promptly stop trying to make an extra effort. The poor students see that they got a "C" when inside their heads they know they did not deserve it. Since they know they will get a "C" anyway, why bother to try at all? It will come as no surprise to any student of human behavior, when standardized tests are given to this class of students; they will score abysmally compared to classes with teachers who are not committed to the doctrine of egalitarianism. All that happens under egalitarianism is that everybody is much worse off than before. There simply is no workable way to use some system to "force" a correction for the uneven distribution of talent. This simple fact of life is why capitalism always wins out over communism, socialism, etc. because it employs a system of rewards and punishment to provide incentives for outstanding achievement. Communism and socialism do not provide such incentives so everyone is encouraged to "goof off" since there is no incentive to do more than just enough to get by. This can be made even worse by introducing a system where no one can be fired for poor work performance. In such a system, productivity goes out the window. This then brings us back to the question of whether money making ability is a talent that is also unequally distributed or not. There seems no reason to assume that it is any different from any other talent and that some people have a "knack" for making money and others do not. That being the case how will taxing the rich to force them to give to the poor work out any better than giving everybody a "C" in a classroom? Why should the rich bother to bust their butts to start up new businesses or expand their old ones using the capital they have accumulated when the government is going to confiscate everything over a certain amount of money per person? Their incentive to put their money to work to make still more money is destroyed. All that happens is that everyone is worse off or poorer than they were before. Are you better off now than you were a few years ago? Most of us are not. Could it be that Obama's policies have discouraged the wealthy from creating more wealth for everyone and that is why everyone but the rich are worse off than ever? Capitalism works best when the government is no more than a referee to insure that reasonable rules for fair play are enforced. Whenever it gets into the business of meddling with the mechanics of the economy in the interests of enforcing equality, it just makes a mess out of everything. Government then is in the business of picking winners and losers. Not surprisingly, the winners always turn out to be those individuals and entities that support whoever is running the government. All that happens is that crony capitalism runs wild as businesses figure out that there is money to be made by playing the game that those in power want to play by any means necessary. This distortion of the free marketplace causes a recovery from an economic downturn to be very anemic at best or even drives it back into another recession. Government always screws up everything it touches. It simply is the nature of the beast. Government is an evil. It may be a necessary evil but it is still an evil. It will always pick winners and losers because it is run by humans who want to harness the power of government to reward their friends and punish their enemies. Unlike capitalism that rewards achievers, all government does is reward ass kissers and such people are seldom wealth producers for anyone but themselves. When capitalism works freely, it spreads wealth around to everyone, It does not spread it evenly because it rewards risk takers and producers and not just somebody who has a buddy in the government. The other problem with government micromanaging everything is that it makes our decisions for us with a one size fits all mentality. All this does besides making us poorer is that we become less free as well. We are no longer in charge of our own lives because government elitists who think they are smarter than everyone else but themselves are making all of our decisions for us in the belief that we are too stupid to make them for ourselves. The fact that their policies are attempting to right "supposed" wrongs that cannot be fixed in the real world, this will not turn out well except for them. The rest of us will just get screwed, blued and tattooed and that we submit is exactly what is happening.
Redistributing the Wealth
Pity the Democrat Members of Congress
A lot of Democrats in both the House and the Senate are going to lose their seats in November. The heck of it is that the ones who most deserve to lose are not the ones who will lose. The people pushing the socialist agenda of Obama like Pelosi are not going to lose their seats. Republicans could not get elected dog catcher in their districts. No, it is the Democrats in marginal and certainly in the conservative districts who are going down. They are the ones whose arms had to be twisted to get them to vote for Obama's agenda.
The strange thing is that though these Democrats have poll numbers in the toilet, President Obama's are not. Oh, they have fallen drastically but they were unrealistically high to start with. Right now his approval ratings exceed his disapproval ratings by one point give or take a point. We find this strange that his agenda is hurting the Democrats badly in Congress but not causing him that much trouble when it is his agenda we are talking about. On top of that are his very visible personal failings. He seems to think nothing of telling outright whoppers which all but his most sycophantic followers know are not true. His decisions on dealing with the war on terror are incomprehensible and his appeasement foreign policy is a total joke. Yet still his ratings are not near as bad as those vulnerable Democrats in congress.
Right now, the Democrats are on the verge of losing both houses of Congress and unless things improve soon that is exactly what will happen in November. If Obama's agenda is killing the Democrats in Congress and it clearly is, why isn't the voting public just as annoyed with Obama? Why is that? Why is his personal approval so much higher than ratings for his agenda? There has to be some reason why this agenda has not pulled down Obama's approval to match that of the Democrats in Congress. We think it is because a lot of voters have been unwilling to admit they made a mistake in electing him. Perhaps others are less than truthful to polling companies because they do not want to be considered racists. Let's face it, the Obama administration has relentlessly played the race card and very effectively.
That brings up the question of why the Democrats in Congress have been willing to fall on their swords to advance this agenda when it only hurts them and not Obama. One would think that the vulnerable Democrats would have long since have seen the handwriting on the wall and told Obama they were all through paying such a heavy price for advancing his agenda. The election of Scott Brown does seem to have been the necessary wake-up call for a lot of them. Perhaps that is why his agenda has suddenly screeched to a halt. The odd part of all of this is that Obama is still pushing his far left agenda seemingly oblivious to the damage it is doing to his party. If you truly believe Obama's claim that he is not an ideologue then we have this great bridge in Brooklyn we can make you a great deal on.
We can understand why those Democrats from safe districts can enthusiastically support this agenda because it is no skin off their electoral hides. Not only that, but their constituents undoubtedly favor socialism or else why would they continually vote for these leftist wackos? But what about the rest of those Democrats who only got there in 2006 or 2008 at the expense of a Republican incumbent? Whatever possessed them to commit political suicide for this idealistic and yet totally unrealistic nonsense? Did they truly think the American electorate would let them turn this country into Sweden lite? If so they totally misread the message that the voters were sending them in 2008 as is now readily apparent to anyone who does not have blinders on. Enthusiasm for our first black President is not a mandate for socialism.
Some people just have to learn things the hard way so pity those blue dog Democrats who really were not very enthusiastic about this agenda and who are now paying the price for those who were. It is too bad that those who are all for this nonsense are getting off Scot free and so is Obama who will not get his comeuppance until 2012.
The Sky is Really Falling
From The Marston Chronicles
In 45 years of being heavily involved in politics, we have never seen anything like this. Having been hammered for two elections, the Republican Party was totally on the ropes with only 40 Senate seats and 178 House seats. This is down from 55 Senate seats and 232 House seats in just four years. Now just 15 months later, the Republicans are poised to regain control of both houses in Congress in November. We are projecting a 58 seat gain in the House which would give them four more seats than they lost in the last two elections. We were projecting only a 44 seat gain just three weeks ago.
The Senate has been considered totally out of reach by everyone, ourselves included, until the election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts. The reverberations of that election are still striking every nook and cranny of the American political world. Races that would have been considered totally hopeless are now in play. Since there were only 19 Democrat held seats in play, how could the Republicans possibly expect to pick up 11 more to regain control of the Senate? The seats in Hawaii, Vermont and Schumers's seat in New York were and still are totally out of reach.
Who would believe that the Republicans would have a snowball's chance in hell of picking up 11 of the remaining 16 seats? On top of this, three more seats in Connecticut, Maryland and Oregon are really long shots even now. For example, Senator Wyden in Oregon does not even have a Republican opponent and his seat is the best bet of the three. So that left the Republicans with having to pick up 11 of the remaining 13 seats to regain control. They have already picked up the Massachusetts seat with the election of Scott Brown so now they need 10 of 12 seats. You could have gotten odds of 100 to 1 that the Republicans could not do that. If we were in Las Vegas right now and had some money to spare, we sure would be placing a bet that the Republicans would regain control of both houses of Congress in November.
If you look at our table of vulnerable Democrat held seats in the Senate, you will see the latest polls for each seat where they have been taken so far. In those 12 seats, a possible or actual Republican candidate is ahead in 9 of them. This simply cannot be happening and since it is, the sky must really be falling. Of course, there are some problems in three of these good chance seats in that Pataki in New York, Thompson in Wisconsin and Rossi in Washington have not committed to run yet. Even unannounced, they are ahead of Gillibrand, Feingold and Murray. This is totally unbelievable. If these three run and the election were held today, there would be a tie in the Senate and Vice-President Biden would be casting the tie breaking vote for the Democrats.
But wait, we are not done yet. Let's look at the other three seats left out of the 12: Illinois, California and Indiana. We will not know about Illinois until a poll is taken after today's primary. In California, Boxer is only ahead of Campbell by 4 points and Bayh is only ahead of Hostettler by 3 in Indiana. It is entirely possible that the Republicans could pick up all 12 seats and that is just totally unreal. Things like this just do not happen in politics but then Republicans do not get elected in Massachusetts, the most Democrat state in the union, to fill a seat once held by two Kennedy brothers either.
How could this be happening? The only plausible answer is that there is a massive rejection by the voting public of the agenda being pushed by the Democrat trifecta of Obama, Reid and Pelosi. Trying to jam health care reform down our throats, trying terrorists as common criminals and spending money like a whole carrier full of drunken sailors on Uncle Sam's credit card is ringing up a massive no sale for the Democrats. No one likes rejection but the worst thing you can do is to pretend it is not happening. That is definitely whistling past the graveyard. In this case, the graveyard is where the far left agenda of the trifecta is being buried right now. The Democrats need to "straighten up and fly right", so to speak, or suffer the most disastrous defeat in the history of modern politics.
What Are We to Make of the Brown Victory?
Clearly there was a huge message sent by the Massachusetts electorate but what exactly was the message? More importantly, what will Obama, Reid and Pelosi think it means? Our take is that the voters were telling the Democrat leadership that they totally misread the message that the voters sent them in 2008. They thought they had received a mandate to veer hard to the left and install socialism lite in this country. That was not the message at all as the Massachusetts voters have now made clear. The 2008 message was that we are tired of the GOP and its many mistakes and we want to try something else as we suggested here in Misjudging the Popular Mood on 1/11/09. The other big factor was the color of Obama's skin. If the Democrats had selected a white male, even McCain would have wiped up the floor with him. A black candidate energized the black community and the under 30 crowd to register and come out to vote, something they have never been known for doing previously.
There is no way that this was a mandate to turn the United States into Sweden. Since the Democrat leadership totally misread the election result, they began a journey of one huge mistake after another. Whatever made them so naive that they could come to such an unwarranted conclusion? The answer is what we wrote here last September called Ideologues Make Poor Politicians. That article is worth a reread. The Democrat leadership is composed of ideologues first and politicians second. That is a very bad idea. They will always read any situation through the rose colored glasses of their own ideology.
They are doing that today once again. Obama plans to double down and be more combative then ever. Reid promises to press ahead on health care. Pelosi promises that they will move forward on health care. Now most people will read these comments and wonder to themselves whether these folks have lost their pea picking minds. What is there about the word "No" that you do not understand? Their next thought is that these people are really stupid because any fool can see that doing this guarantees they will lose control of the House and maybe even the Senate if they do not wise up. They are not stupid but rather they are blinded by their ideology.
They have convinced themselves that they know better what is good for America than the hoi polloi out there. That is what makes them seem so elitist to many Americans. Their obsession is such that they think that once they force their ideas on the "rabble" and they get used to it, the common folk will love it. After all, don't they love Social Security and Medicare now? Of course, such entitlement programs always come with the downside that the government gains more control over your life. To these ideologues, that is a minor detail since the masses are too stupid to make their own decisions anyway. Their problem is that the electorate does see this downside and they do not like it.
America is the last country on earth where you want to try to force people to accept what they have decided they do not want. That may work in Europe but not here. Americans are too fiercely independent to put up with this. The country started out that way with the American Revolution and the "do not tread on me" motto. While a distinct minority of the populace is willing to sell their birthright for a security blanket, the majority are not. As diluted as that feeling is in the most Democratic state in the union, it is not totally lost as 51.94% of the voters in Massachusetts just made clear. They are willing to put up with a lot in Massachusetts but there are limits and those limits have been breached. If that is true in the most Democrat state in the union, you can just manage what the percentage is in Utah, the most Republican state in the union.
That is why it is so ironic that Massachusetts has once again fired the shot heard around the world. That the folks in Massachusetts would decide to fill the seat once held by the liberal Ted Kennedy with a Republican is a repudiation of the Democrat's agenda in the strongest possible terms. The Democrats would do well to hear the real message they were sent and tack back to the right as Bill Clinton did after the 1994 election. Any failure to do that will come to haunt them when the chickens come home to roost next November.
How Will the Media Handle a Solid Brown Win?
The mainstream media has not made much of a secret about their feelings in favor of Obama. A solid win (by five or more points) by Brown would be one of the biggest political upsets in history. It would require that the news media try to explain how this could have happened. Will they make excuses for Obama and the Democrats or will they be honest and admit that the arrogant attitude on the part of the Democratic leadership had a lot to do with it? If they do what they have been doing, they will blame just Coakley and her campaign. While Coakley has indeed run an abysmal campaign, that alone cannot explain such an upset.
Massachusetts is the most Democratic state in the union if you do not count the District of Columbia as a state. Massachusetts has given the last three Democratic candidates for President an average of a 26.09% margin which is higher than any other state. It has not elected a Republican Senator since 1972. For a Republican senatorial candidate to ever carry this state would be a remarkable feat but to win the seat held by Teddy Kennedy for almost 50 years just boggles the mind. Now there is no reasonable way that the media can ignore these facts. This is their last chance to show that they have any integrity left and to retain some semblance of credibility. If they try to spin the significance of this political earthquake as anything but an utter repudiation of the Obama/Reid/Pelosi agenda, they will be toast.
Right now they are hoping to get a pass by having Coakley somehow manage to squeak out a narrow victory. Three polls taken on Sunday are unanimous in showing Brown ahead. Two of them have him up by an identical 9.6% and the Public Policy Poll has him up by 5 points. The chance of their getting a pass is mighty slim. Even Obama said that a Brown win will seriously negatively impact his agenda which is why he went to Massachusetts to try and get Coakley over the finish line. Obama is the one who by his own words told the voters of Massachusetts that he needs them to elect Coakley to save his agenda. When Brown wins, how else can one honestly explain the results as anything but a repudiation of that agenda?
Based on their past performance, we suspect the mainstream media will not be pointing this fact out. In a way, that does not really matter since any Democrat elected federal politician will definitely draw the conclusion that if a Senate seat in Massachusetts is not safe, then no seat is safe any more. Since this election was in large part a referendum on the health care bill and the way it was jammed through Congress against united Republican opposition, health care will be a very hot potato for Democrats. More Democrats will either decide to retire or decide to vote against any compromise bill that is drafted even if they can bring it to a vote before Brown is seated. Any attempt to do that will have a tremendous fallout in November.
The bottom line is that this is the mainstream media's last chance to get a political story right. If they fail to do this, then a lot of liberal newspapers will be filing for bankruptcy in the near future. In television, the major networks will have a remarkable ratings drop off while Fox gains dramatically. So it comes down to ideology versus survival. Somehow we do not believe the mainstream media will see this as a matter of survival and will therefore take the ideological road. Oh well, this will merely hasten what will eventually happen anyway. With the internet readily available, who needs the mainstream media any more anyway?
2008 and 2009 Elections Compared
It seems appropriate to take a look at what happened one year ago. Based on all previous trends in elections, McCain should have won in a landslide 310 to 228 electoral votes. Obviously, that is not happened and the question is why? From a distance of one year after the fact, the answer is now clear. Historically minorities and the under 30 age groups have a very poor record of turning out to vote assuming they are even registered to vote in the first place. It was clear that black voters were going to turn out in record numbers to vote for a black candidate. There was no reason to assume that Hispanics would do that or that young people would bother to vote. However they did do just that and that made a crucial difference in the battleground states. Thus the Democrat turnout (always heavily supported by minorities) reached record proportions.
Still that might have not made the difference in states like North Carolina, Ohio and Indiana if it were not for the Republicans turning out lower than normal. Likewise, many Republicans actually voted for Obama in the interests of proving that America's abysmal racial record was a thing of the past. In this they were disappointed because the matter of race is now more of an issue than it has been since the days of Martin Luther King. Finally a lot of Republicans stayed home because McCain was too liberal or too conservative depending upon the state the voter resided in.
At this point, this is all ancient history so why care? The question is whether the 2008 election was a total upheaval or merely a one time anomaly. The elections on Tuesday provide us with an answer to this crucial question. It was a one time anomaly since the partisan turnout on Tuesday returned to historical norms. The minorities and the young folks went back to not caring much any more about who wins elections. The result was not only Virginia voted Republican but even New Jersey did which it seldom does. This was caused by the independents switching from going 2 to 1 for Obama to going 2 to 1 for Republicans.
What does this mean for 2010? In Virginia, the Republicans carried 9 out of 11 congressional districts on Tuesday. Right now there are six Democrat congressman from Virginia and only five Republicans. Unless things change, there will be 9 Republican congressman and only 2 Democrats from Virginia after the 2010 election. It seems safe to predict that the Democrats will lose virtually all of the seats they gained in the 2006 and 2008 elections. If that happens, the Republicans will regain control of the House of Representatives. See Charles Krauthammer's article, Myth of '08, Demolished, coming to the same conclusion.
What Makes Obama Tick?
We have been watching the actions of President Obama trying to figure out what really motivates him. We did not support him for the Presidency, not because he was black or even a Democrat, but rather because his previous history indicated that he was not really supportive of the America we know and love. Still when he did get elected, we looked at the bright side and felt that at least we had proved that skin color was no longer a barrier to political advancement in this country. There is no way he could have gotten elected without a great number of white votes so we felt that at least white guilt would be a thing of the past and race relations in this country would improve. No such luck.
We slowly began developing a theory that could explain his actions. For a minute let's just assume that an individual who was raised as a Muslim in the most Muslim country in the world and attended Muslim schools also retained this childhood conditioning. Let's further assume that this person moved to the United States and eventually became President. What would a true Muslim do in such a case? He could not admit to being a Muslim so he would have to be ostensibly a Christian. Does this explain why Obama could be a member of a church with a rabid race baiting minister and not be bothered about it even when his mother was white?
What kind of politics would such a person be attracted to? Wouldn't he pick associates no matter how horrendous their background and who actually hate this non-Muslim country? Wouldn't he be attracted to a politics that was the most dangerous to the United States? Wouldn't he surround himself with people most likely to accept a black person and actually push him based on his race? Wouldn't such a person resort to dirty tricks to eliminate political opponents, even those who had supported him in the past? Is it just some coincidence that most of Obama's opponents were forced out of his races giving him a free ride?
Wouldn't he campaign as a person who strongly favors a "help the oppressed minorities and adopt a message of peace and good will towards all mankind" while pushing the hope that he could right all of the evils in this world? But is that what he would do when he actually got elected President? Obviously not. The first thing a closet Muslim would do is totally ignore the gays who overwhelming supported him because his Muslim beliefs caused him to think that they should really be executed. The next thing he would do is slowly and steadily pull the rug out from underneath Israel and ignore the American Jews who overwhelming supported him because he really hates them.
In foreign policy matters, he would be a total wuss. He would encourage anyone who is opposed to the United States by letting him know that he will not stand in their way if they make quiet but still overt moves against our interests. He would make nice with the most dangerous Muslim countries like Iran. Since Muslims are not particularly interested in democracy, he would quietly support dictators of all sorts such as Castro, Chavez, and their like. He would alienate our allies and slowly but surely strip them of any defense against Muslim aggression. He would bow to a Muslim king and give a speech on and in the Middle East to let Muslim leaders know they had a friend in the White House without being so obvious that anyone one not on the right wing would protest.
While campaigning on the idea that Afghanistan was where the real war should be waged, once elected he would do nothing to support it and stall as long as possible on military requests for assistance. In the end, he would do nothing so that the Taliban could win and give not only the United States but also give its NATO allies a black eye. After that betrayal, why would the West be interested in combating terrorism? He would even rename the War on Terrorism to further trivialize the effort.
He would push programs that would devastate the economic welfare of this country by running up massive deficits. He would favor laws that profess to do something about global warming but would actually make the current recession much worse. He would push for more expensive entitlement programs that would inevitably bankrupt this country. He would keep pushing these programs even when a rising opposition caused his poll numbers to go into free fall. Such a person would not care about political damage to himself or members of his party or getting them or himself re-elected because he would need to do as much damage as fast as possible. Does any of this ring a bell? We just cannot come up with any other theory that explains all of Obama's actions. We greatly fear that Obama is a Muslim wolf in Christian sheep's clothing. We truly hope we are wrong but we do not think we are.
See http://www.resistnet.com/profiles/blogs/islams-stats-from-the-cia comment number three for Obama's sister's confirmation of this theory.
The Stimulus Package: Fear Mongering and Crisis Propagation, the Liberal Way
Cross posted at Politics and Critical Thinking.
This attempt at breaking down the stimulus from the beginning to the end will not be an easy undertaking, since I am not economist. However, neither is President Obama, he is a lawyer. Nevertheless, there is ample information from sound sources to help the average tax payer understand exactly what the government is asking of them and the other possibilities for economic stimulus. This first addition is a challenge to the government's claim that we are in the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Also, this will show how they are propagating fear in order to push their agenda onto the American people.
As far as this blog is concerned, free markets and economics are inexorably connected to the liberty and prosperity of every individual American. This is not to say humankind is free due to capitalism, just that if used properly, it can be the engine of that freedom. Mankind is unarguably born with certain unalienable rights that are derived from Higher, not from monetary, fiscal, or economic policy.
However, despots, tyrants, dictators, and megalomaniacs have learned throughout the years that by manipulating these economic systems they can attain a greater accumulation of power over their citizenry. Infringing on, if not taking away these freedoms, all in the name of the State. Thereby, creating an atmosphere of dependency on the government for even the most basic daily needs.
Even as far back as October, then Senator Obama, was stirring fears that this was the greatest economic downfall since the Great Depression. Recently, even his toadies and acolytes have been echoing the same sentiments. All for the sake of spreading fear and generating hopes that they have the only answers to end this crisis.
Now, only a fool would say, with a straight face, we aren't in hard times and things aren't going to get harder. But the egregious claims and fear mongering of the Obama administration fall apart once you look at history.
According to the Bureau of Labor, from 1930-41 the unemployment rate never dropped below 8.9% and actually went as high as 24.9%. When the recession deepened in circa 1981-82, unemployment sat at well over 10%. We are presently at 7.4%, althoughthis number will undoubtedly get higher, it still remains to be seen whether it tops either of these benchmarks.
As far as GDP, from 1929-1933 there was a major constriction, to put it mildly. The GDP output of the United States in 1929 was $865.2 billion and in 1933 it sat at $635.3 billion, this represents a -29.3% decline in the gross domestic product of the US in a 4 year period. It was not until 1936 when the GDP reached $866.6 billion, did the economy finally overcome the 1929 tally. This represents real growth of only $1.4 billion over a 7 year period. Furthermore, this still does not address the rampant inflation or unemployment most Americans still faced.
In 1981 the GDP sat at $5,291.7 trillion, then in 1982 after a major contraction brought on by the recession it was lowered to $5,189.3 trillion, meaning a decline of -1.9%.
Looking at the breakdown of each quarter in FY 2008 you gain a comparison between them and the previous recessions. In FY 2008 we had 1st quarter growth of .9% (Final Report), 2nd quarter growth was 2.8% (Final Report), the 3rd quarter sat at -.03% (Preliminary Report), and finally 4th quarter results were a -3.8% loss (Advanced Report). Totaling up the BEA's quarterly reports for FY 2008 results in a net loss of -1.3%. The recession of 1981-82 still sets higher in losses by +.6% and there is no contest between the losses that were incurred during the Great Depression years which totaled -29.3%. The best year for declines in GDP, during this time, was actually 1933, when there was a loss, ironically, of -1.3%.
How interesting that once you crunch the numbers you see quite a different picture than what the administration is selling. Quite simply, they are misrepresenting the facts in order to perpetuate fear and panic to gain public support for their expensive and expansive government project. Again this is not to say things are not bad or they will not get worse, this is simply where we are at right now. We have one recession, 27 years ago which was actually worse, yet no one was running around talking about spending our way into oblivion. Quite to the contrary, then President Reagan used tax cuts to stimulate the economy. He brought about huge gains for the American people by creating 20 million new quality jobs under his administration, ushering an era of prosperity and hope that lasted for a little over 15 years.
Please note, the figures presented here are from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Read them for yourself, don't take my word for it.
The Wurzelbacher Effect
As appeared on Politics and Critical Thinking.
CT
To say the polls and the economy have been anything less than bipolar is an understatement. Fear and concern about the future are driving this election more than in anytime since the 70's, the reasons for all this trepidation is obvious though. What is not, is why the American population’s perception of Obama and McCain is so erratic? Obama’s lead continues to ebb and flow like the tide.
If you believe the lesser than reputable polling sources or the MSM, Obama has the election in the bag. However, what I don’t trust about their information is the margin of victory they are declaring. Here are some numbers from IBD and Rasmussen from the last eighteen days. I chose these two because of their reputation for accurate polling results, techniques, and continuity.
On Rasmussen, from the 17th-26th, Obama did not have much to worry about, IBD has a similar situation from the 17th-21st. Then, things started changing with people’s acuity of the election, what was it? On or around the 15th of this month was when we met Joe Wurzelbacher. The gentleman who, so unexpectedly but graciously, accepted the mission of confronting Obama on his policies. This encounter revealed Obama's true nature concerning; taxes, wealth, and redistribution.
The effect was not immediate as you can see by the polls. But Joe opened the door for the GOP to be able to hammer Obama with vids, ads, and even on some MSM outlets about his platform on taxation and wealth redistribution. This is the only factor I can see that has some legitimacy where the erosion of Obama's lead is concerned.
While the Ayers controversy is important with the Conservative base and purists, it has not been a concern to most Moderates and Independents. Thus, it has been a somewhat ineffective campaign tactic. However, Obama’s proven wealth redistribution philosophy is the common denominator between the above mentioned groups. You might even be able to include some Blue Dog Democrats in that number also.
There is also a fear that Obama and his Progressive cronies are going to increase government spending and raise taxes. This is a legitimate apprehension, with the bail out and the upcoming proposal of ANOTHER stimulus package, the question arises, “Who is going to pay for all of this?” The average American is not ignorant; they may not understand complex macroeconomic derivatives or know what the GCI (Global Competitiveness Index) is. But, they do know that raising taxes and raucous spending during a recession, or otherwise, is tantamount to economic suicide.
Rasmussen now has some interesting poll results out, it seems that the American voter is changing their mind about McCain v. Obama on taxes, “After several weeks of John McCain’s campaign attacks on Barack Obama’s tax plan and idea of “spreading the wealth around”, the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds voters trust McCain more than Obama on taxes, 47% to 45%.”
There is also a slight shift in opinion concerning who they trust more on economic issues, “McCain also has gained ground as the candidate to trust on economic issues. Forty-eight percent (48%) now trust the Republican hopeful more than the Democrat while 47% hold the opposite view.”
This has to be the explanation of why the polls are shifting, further closing the gap between McCain and Obama. Keep in mind, these are national polls, they represent voters on a national level, not regional. Internal state polling still has McCain at a severe disadvantage in key areas. Though, as a rule of thumb, when national polls tend to shift, in time the state polls usually follow. The question is, does enough time remain for McCain to recover the ground needed to be victorious?
Either way, win or lose, I am giving Joe Wurzelbacher credit for shedding some light on this issue. We have been so lost in the torrent of economic flooding I think people have forgotten how much taxation and spending actually effects the economy. This is why I am calling this phenomena “The Wurzelbacher Effect.”
-CT
"Happy Hunting!"
The P.U.M.A. Factor
The results of the polls for President are all over the map. If the polls are supposed to be correct to a 95% degree of certainly give or take 2 or 3 percent, how can the polls be that much different for the same candidates when taken at the same time? The simple answer is that they should not be that far apart. If you take a look at the polls making up the average at www.realclearpolitics.com on October 23rd, you will see a range from Senator Obama being up over McCain from 1 to 14 percent. Now there is such a thing called an outlier poll. That is where that other 5% comes into play and statistics says that the result could be outside of that normal sampling error of 2 to 3 percent. So let’s say that happened with both the 1% and 14% results and throw those away. That still leaves a range of 2 to 11% and that is way outside the margin of error on both polls. How come?
Take a look at the polling results for the 2004 election. Here you do not see the wild differences between the various polling firms. In the same time period in October of 2004, the range was from a 1 to 6 point lead for Bush. That is a five point spread and within the margin of error. That is a big difference between the current 13 point spread that is way outside the margin of error. To have this kind of spread indicates that something unusual is happening that is causing problems with the adjustments polling companies have to make to get the sample of voters to properly represent all of the voters. No random sample of voters perfectly represents all voters and polling firms have to weight their results to force them into being representative of all voters.
I actually supply polling samples for a polling company and hence I know for a fact that the sample has to be 10 times greater than the actual number of households that will be successfully polled. It is not that only one household in ten will actually take the poll but what if they do not answer the phone? Then because of the weighting required, you may need more of a particular subgroup than for others. The group that has come up short could be because of gender, party affiliation, age, urban versus rural, etc. The percentages of these demographic groups are quite well known and the polling sample must reflect the correct percentage of these various groups. Still polling firms are used to having to make all of these various adjustments and even know how to adjust for differences between people who will take the poll and those who will not by comparing poll results to actual election results. That being the case, what is the explanation for this huge variation of polling results in this election?
The only answer that seems to fit is that suddenly in this election, these adjustments are being made quite differently by the various polling firms. If their weighting algorithms are not correct, this would skew the results. Still, major national polling firms have a lot of experience and they have learned how to fine tune these algorithms pretty well. What is far more likely is that the sample simply does not accurately represent the voters in the area being polled as a whole due to some new factor. Obviously, when the polling companies look at the results from other polling firms and they see results different from their own outside the margin of error; they know something is amiss just like I do. This has caused them to try and tweak their weighting algorithms during the election season. Departing from tried and true weighting algorithms is a risky thing to do, but what choice do they have?
The fact of the matter is that instead of properly correcting for this unknown factor, they have only made things worse. I know of nothing else that could cause such wildly different results. This problem in turn has resulted in totally different headlines about what is happening in this election. Some say that the race is tightening considerably and others saying that the gap is widening to the point of being a landslide. The Drudge Report for October 22nd showed both of these claims. If you believe the Zogby results, then we are heading for a blowout. If you believe the Associated Press result, we are headed for another squeaker election. Obviously, they both cannot be right so which one is correct? That is precisely why the folks at www.realclearpolitics.com prefer to average all the polls hoping that the various sampling errors will balance each other out.
If you look at the graph of the RCP averages, you will clearly see that Obama is slowly but surely pulling away. At first glance, it would appear the Zogby poll has it right and the Associated Press poll has it wrong. If you look at the previous Zogby poll taken two weeks earlier, you see Obama up by 5. You cannot blame Zogby for looking at this 7 point jump and predicting a landslide of Reagan proportions. Likewise Pew Research shows a jump from 7 to 14 points. Their weighting algorithms show a blowout in the making. The Associated Press poll shows a change from a 7 point lead to just 1 point. If the Associated Press was alone in showing this, we could say their weighting algorithm is just plain wrong, but they are not alone. The CNN poll shows a drop from 8 to 5 points. The Democracy Corps, a democratic polling firm, shows a drop from 9 to 4 points. Surely no one would accuse the polling firms doing the polls for these three outlets of being biased towards John McCain.
This makes even the RCP averages suspect because they are using all these contradictory results. If the tightening group is correct, then the averages are wrong to show a widening gap. The increasing gap in the RCP averages is caused by more polling firms using a weighting algorithm resulting in a widening gap than a narrowing one. The same thing is happening in the battleground states where the RCP averages show that McCain is in a world of hurt. He has to hold the red states and Colorado, Iowa, New Mexico, Ohio and Virginia are showing up as blue in the RCP electoral map and none of the blue states are even toss up states in this election. If that is true, there is no way McCain can possibly win in the Electoral College. But what if the firms using a narrowing gap weighting algorithm are correct? Then we have a whole new ballgame.
Meantime, back at the McCain camp, their strategy makes no sense. They have practically conceded Iowa, Colorado and New Mexico and are still pursuing some blue states. They are not overly worried about Ohio and Virginia either. Neither do they seem very worried about all of those toss up states. So what is going on here? Clearly, the McCain campaign thinks the narrowing algorithms are correct, but isn't that just wishful thinking? They pulled out of Michigan when the Democratic Rossman Group/MIRS poll had them down by only 5 points. Yet they persist in Pennsylvania when the RCP average has them down by 10.5 points. No one has them closer than 8 points right now and no one has had them closer than a tie in the last six months. They sent Palin to New Hampshire where they are behind from 8 to 13 points. Why would they do this? They cannot be that stupid unless they think they are on to something.
Remember that the McCain camp has their own polling firm and are running their own private polls. The only answer that makes sense is that the McCain folks are convinced that their own polling firm has figured out what factor is causing all those wildly differing results from the other polling firms. Whatever this factor is, it is something that the tried and true weighting algorithms are not handling properly. In a previous article, I speculated that it could be that the Bradley Factor is alive and well in this election. Since this is the first presidential election with a black candidate, the weighting algorithms are just not equipped to handle the race factor. The fact that the race card has been repeatedly played in this election could be causing the Bradley Factor to be much more prominent than it ordinarily would be.
Yet Gallup Polling claims that the Bradley Factor is a wash at best and could actually be adding an extra 3 points to Obama's total in a kind of reverse Bradley Effect. Looking at where the McCain folks are competing when they would seem to have no chance, they all have one thing in common. They were carried by Hillary Clinton and in some cases even after it was obvious that Obama had it locked up. McCain was bound to pick up some of Hillary's supporters anyway after the way Hillary was treated by the Obama campaign. These are the so-called PUMA (Party Unity My Ass) folks. Clearly the McCain folks think that there is a P.U.M.A. Factor in play which is a variation of the Bradley Factor. The results that Hillary got simply cannot be explained by race alone. It was the positions that she took that were different than Obama's that resonated with these voters. Because Obama has such an extremely liberal voting record, there were some issues where even Hillary agreed with McCain more than she did with Obama.
This effect was heightened by the selection of Sarah Palin which gave these folks an even better reason to vote for McCain and Palin. These supporters are primarily female and given the political differences between Sarah and Hillary, one would think that the PUMA people would be few and far between. What is missing in all of this is the males who voted for Hillary over Obama. They are far less inclined to be upset about how Hillary was treated. On the other hand, Sarah Palin is more their kind of woman than even Hillary is. They are blue collar Democrats who are into hunting and fishing just like Sarah is. They were not buying what Obama was offering then and they still feel the same way.
The key point here is that these people are actually Democrats who plan on voting for McCain. Because such people are being called racists for this by people like John Murtha of Pennsylvania, they are not telling the pollsters that they are planning to vote for McCain. Most of the pollsters are weighting their samples based on the usual voting splits between Democrats and Republicans. If the P.U.M.A. Factor is upsetting this voting pattern, the pollsters are giving too much weight to the Democrats in their samples. If the polling firm for the McCain campaign has figured out how to adjust for the P.U.M.A. Factor, then they are getting radically different results and that is especially so in some blue states that Hillary carried by wide margins. This same adjustment has caused them to realize which red states are not good bets any more and which blue states are up for grabs in spite of what other pollsters are showing.
This conclusion is reinforced by the fact that the McCain folks are not alone in thinking that Pennsylvania is not a lost cause for McCain. This list includes Ed Rendell, the Democratic governor of Pennsylvania. Todd Beeton at MyDD has an article making his very point. The difference is that while an Obama internal poll may show him only ahead by two points, it might be even closer if the McCain polling firm has correctly identified how to adjust their weighting algorithm for the P.U.M.A. Factor. The bottom line is that we haven't heard the fat lady (oops, pleasingly plump lady) sing yet. Perhaps Senator Obama is wee bit premature in planning his victory celebration and putting his transition team together.
The American Gestapo
The old saying is that if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck then it is a duck. But the opposite is also true. If you see a duck, you expect it to behave like a duck in that it will waddle and quack like a duck does. If a gestapo should set up shop in America, we would recognize it by what gestapos do, namely shout down anyone who disagrees with their point of view. Of course, they could not get away with secret police methods right out in the open in America. They could not just kill such dissenters or throw them in jail without filing charges, at least not at first anyway. But they could get away with suppressing dissent through the time tested method of intimidation. They let everyone opposing the gestapo know what will happen to them if they refuse to agree by making an example of anyone who questions what the gestapo has decided is best for everyone.
If you ever had any doubt that we have a budding gestapo in our midst, the case of Joe Wurzelbacher, known popularly as Joe the Plumber, should have removed that doubt. So how is that Joe got squashed like a bug? Did he organize some protest movement? Did he attend a McCain-Palin rally? No, it turns out that Joe was minding his own business, playing football with his son in his own front yard. That was when he had the misfortune to be approached by Senator Obama, who while he is the one who has been chosen for us by our supposed masters, he has not been anointed quite yet. Poor Joe had the temerity to question the four year economic plan of Senator Obama. He wanted to know why Senator Obama planned to raise taxes on small business owners so that they would have no incentive to expand their businesses and hire more employees. Joe did not put it exactly that way, but that was the gist of the question.
That was when the "chosen one" made a slip of the tongue and explained that it would be better for everyone if the wealth was spread around more evenly. Joe may not have known that this is a socialist idea, but he knew a bad idea when he heard it and he said so. Other people, who heard this answer were quick to point out that this idea is just plain out and out socialism. Now socialism has a negative connotation in America if for no other reason than Communists invariably call their countries socialist republics. The most powerful of these countries, the USSR, as Russia was formerly called, crashed and burned because socialism is an inherently unworkable system. That is because there is no reward for incentive and hence growth is strangled. To adopt a policy of increasing taxes on business owners and investors when there is a recession in progress is a disaster. Since Senator Obama is also proposing to do away with free trade agreements under the guise of protecting American jobs, combining increased taxes with increased tariffs on imported goods is a sure fire way to turn a recession into a depression.
This sudden unmasking of the true motives of the "chosen one" was a disaster. Up to that point, all those who supported Senator McCain had been dismissed as a bunch of losers who were just plain stupid and racists to boot. The message had been sent loud and clear to all those disagreeing with the "chosen one" that they would be called racists because Senator Obama happens to have a skin color different from the majority of the people in America. It was hard to characterize a question on tax policy as racist so another time honored tactic was called for. The only solution was to discredit Joe and make him the object of derision so as to cover up the answer Senator Obama had inadvertently given. Thus the gestapo immediately began digging into Joe's background. What was desperately needed was all the dirt that they could find.
They were delighted when they found some. It turns out that Joe is behind on his taxes and that he could not really be a plumber because he is not licensed as one. Better yet was the possibility that he might be related to a relative of a disgraced banker from the savings and loan debacle, Charles H. Keating, Jr.. Best of all, John McCain, the leader of the opposition to the "chosen one", had been linked to that same banker. Now Joe has been thrown to the wolves and the American people have been shown what happens to anyone who dares question Senator Obama and refuses to rubber stamp his being officially anointed as our leader. The gestapo can now rest easy knowing that their "chosen one" is once again assured of becoming the leader.
Any argument that John McCain makes in favor of Joe and the question he asked is being ridiculed by pointing out what a fraud poor Joe is. Lost in all of this is that it is not a matter of who asked the question, but rather the answer that was important. If a felon just released from prison had asked the question, what difference would that make? It was the answer that gave away the deep dark secret. Of course, the point of all of this was to make the story all about the questioner so as to distract attention from the answer given. One only has to look at the blogs to see how well the gestapo's fellow travelers have implemented this strategy. It is now all about Joe, and no longer about socialism.
How is it that one of the guardians protecting our freedoms and democracy has been subverted and turned into a gestapo? That is a very good question. Once upon a time, the mainstream news media reported the news. Slowly they turned into an organ for propaganda instead of news. The people who actually own the media in America would be the very last people to allow their companies to be taken over by the government as the Communists have always done in their countries. Somehow they do not have a problem with hiring people who are perfectly willing to be propagandists for a politician clearly opposed to their owner's best interests. No doubt because these news media are owned by huge conglomerates, they only worry about profits and not about what their employees are up to. Now that the mainstream media has moved on to becoming the thought police and enforcers of lock step conformity to the leader chosen for us, one might think that alarm bells would be ringing in these huge conglomerates, but apparently not.
How has this come to pass? That is easily explained because the first American institutions that were subverted into becoming gestapos were the colleges and universities. In the now distant past, these institutions were bastions of free inquiry and forums for dissent as a necessary part of learning to think for one's self. They are now nothing but dispensers of political correctness and the administrators and professors are the ones who decide what is correct and what is not. You need a degree in journalism these days to get a job in the mainstream media. If you resist the brainwashing in journalism school, your grade point average goes into the toilet. A student wanting a well paying career in journalism soon learns to parrot the current group think according to their journalism professors. Since everyone in their class who dares question that thinking is ridiculed and dumped on, it is not too surprising that these so-called journalists soon become nothing but foot soldiers in the war against politically incorrect thinking. They become part of the movement to suppress all thought that does not measure up to what our self appointed elites consider to be the only possible truth.
The mainstream media behaves just like a gestapo would at the very beginning of when a country turns away from democracy. "By their fruits, ye shall know them." The mainstream media not only stifles dissent by labeling any protesters as racists, but also by viciously turning on those who dare disagree with them. Once this was limited to just the Sarah Palin's of this country. The media's defense is that these people are politicians so it is always open season on them. How then can they explain what they did to an ordinary American working person just like most of the rest of us? The message is loud and clear that you oppose the "chosen one" at great risk to yourself. It is equally clear that the mainstream media has turned into a gestapo in all but name.
That leaves the rest of us with only one remaining option. So far, the ballot is still secret so there is one last place where we can make our dissent known without fear of retribution. Of course Senator Obama is already supporting doing away with the secret ballot in elections to determine if workers will be represented by a union. That will allow union organizers to thoroughly intimidate the workers into joining the union or else. How soon will that be extended to all elections? How many of us are willing to exercise this last option before it is too late? It would appear that we are about to find out.
Income Redistribution Monopoly
We can all agree that there is rich people and poor people (and a bunch in between).
Let's assume we take more taxes from the rich and give that money to the poor to buy stuff from the companies of the rich. Wouldn't it be a lot easier to just give poor people these products for free? Save time by leaving out the monopoly game and transfer paper from one person to the next.
Well one might say - no that would not be fair, because after all we live in a free society and people can choose what they would want to buy!
Ok so I'm free to buy whatever I want, but I'm not free to earn however much I want.
No you are free to earn however much you want - but you have to give part of it away.
That's patriotic, you know.
Ok so it's patriotic to accept the will of a government that is fundamentally different to the original idea of America, but it is not patriotic anymore to push for a society that is free and self-reliant.
Yes it is what is called being "neighborly".
But my neighbor doesn't get the money - isn't the government getting the money and decides on who to give this money to? Wouldn't it be better if I want to give some money to my neighbor just to give it to him?
Of course not because the government is much more objective in distributing the money "fairly".
Ok but in order for me as an average rich person to still make money I will have to transfer my company outside of the US, lay some people off, or have to increase the prices for my products and services.
I will probably not be able to give any raises to my workers or offer incentives for customers. That means their income will not grow, but the prices will.
And if I can't make it - I will go bankrupt. I guess that's okay, because after all I'm a rich person ( or least I was)
But if go bankrupt, more people will have no job, less companies will offer services, less competition will bring even higher prices.
So we started with giving money from the rich to the poor, but inflated the value of money along the way, so the poor will still be poor.
So there will be still poor people and rich people.
The only difference to now is:
There will be more poor people and less rich people! (and less in between)
I guess Income Redistribution is really the Change we Need!
The Alien Patriot
Obama's Politics of Fear
I always thought that inciting fear is the politics of Republicans.
At least that is what the left wing is always trying to put forward.
Obama said on June 21, 2008 (Obama spokesman: His dollar bill comment wasn’t about race):
"They’re going to try to make you afraid of me. He’s young and inexperienced and he’s got a funny name."
But the last few weeks sound like the fear is the main ingredient in Obama's campaign.
They always talk about Bush's third term, but what does that actually mean. That we would have another 7 years without a terrorist act on US soil? That American troops will be again able to bring democracy to this world?
Of course not? You should be afraid of Bush - he went into Iraq because he likes war, he ruined our economy and whatever he touches turns bad.
Supposedly he is the worst president ever - and McCain will be even worse.
At least according to Obama's campaign.
But why are they doing it? Why don't they just spread hope and change?
Because Obama knows that he can only win, if people fear McCain more than him. People are suspicious of him, his record, inexperience and first and foremost his associations. So because people have some fear about him, he has to make people even more scared of his opponent.
The more we will find out about Obama's past, his associations and ideologies, the more he will have to play the fear card. And with the MSM having no problem to bash Bush, McCain and Palin, he's got some great support.
So if you are not afraid of bigger government, socialist ideologies, inexperience, limits to your freedom and the end of a free market society, keep bashing Bush and vote for Obama.
The Alien Patriot
More Fiscal Wizardry
Well here is looking into the crystal ball with an Obama Presidency and Liberal controlled Congress.
After consulting with Barack Obama, Democratic leaders are likely to call Congress back to work after the election in hopes of passing legislation that would include extended jobless benefits, money for food stamps and possibly a tax rebate, officials said Saturday.
The bill's total cost could reach $150 billion, these officials said.[1]As pointed out SEVERAL times before, this money is not free. It is a long term loan that we have to pay back. So, let's spend more money in the wake of this. And of course nothing about spurring investment or creating more private sector jobs. No we will give you infrastructure projects paid for by the government. I am sure all of you getting ready to graduate college are happy to hear after four years of college you are now qualified to swing a hammer. This is not 1933 and we don't need a New Deal solution, it didn't work anyway.
The federal budget deficit hit a new record in the just-completed 2008 budget year under the latest estimates from the Congressional Budget Office.Yeah these are the geniuses that are bringing change and reform to Washington. In reality the only change they are making is breaking us worse. But don't worry there is always this to consider.
The record $438 billion for the budget year that ended last week is up from $162 billion posted last year. The previous record of $413 billion was posted in 2004. [2]
The deficit is virtually certain to balloon even higher next year as the government sorts out the financial crisis and taps a $700 billion Treasury fund to buy toxic mortgage-related securities.[2]Right now there is a lot of debate as to what to do about our economic crisis and Liberals have been fond of bringing up the New Deal as the hope to solve all of our problems. Try again, there were some factors they are leaving out. The first is the massive increase in industrialization as a result
The Depression continued with decreasing effect until the U.S. entered the Second World War. Under the special circumstances of war mobilization, massive war spending doubled the GNP ; Civilian unemployment was reduced from 14% in 1940 to less than 2% in 1943 as the labor force grew by ten million. [3]Secondly, believe it or not it was Roosevelt's impressive attempts at fiscal conservatism.
Fiscal conservatism was a key component of the New Deal, as Zelizer (2000) proves. It was supported by Wall Street and local investors and most of the business community; mainstream academic economists believed in it, as apparently did the majority of the public.[3]Of course I am not suggesting let's go out and start a war or increase the spending. It is counter intuitive to suggest that the solutions are not opposites. But taking a Burkean approach to learning from history you can look at this and be pragmatic about it. If the government is going to get involved in the private sector do so in a fashion that is going to re-industrialize this nation, simple infrastructure projects are not going to cut it. Nor is handing out money to financial institutions. Could you imagine what private industrial firms could do with $700 billion dollars of venture capital? Secondly, we have got to stop spending our way into oblivion, this is beyond ridiculous.
The Liberals, meaning the Repubs also, only grab the plays out of the playbook they like and ignore the other factors involved. Free market did not get us here. Out of control spending, greed, and inane regulatory laws did and that is the fact.
-OP
[1] Tax rebate, food stamp money possible in aid plan
[2] Budget deficit hits record $438 billion, CBO says
[3] New Deal
