Obama’s plans hurting the economy: Yahoo “Poll”

Interesting and somewhat surprising.  An AT&T/Yahoo Poll in progress has the following results so far. 

“Q. The president’s progress with the battered economy has been both praised and criticized. How well are his efforts measuring up with you?

Extremely well. We are undoubtedly moving in the right direction.	19%
Fairly well. There’s still a long way to go.	14%
Not well at all. His plans are hurting more than helping.	65%
Not sure/No opinion.	2%

79205 votes”

Unfortunately, I can’t link directly to the poll or it’s results.  The link pulls up a java window or something.  Of course, this is not a scientific poll, but it is ineteresting nonetheless.  I did not think we would see any wavering among the faithful this early in the game.

Free Government Money!

Peter Schiff was right, so why is he being shunned by the media?

Peter Schiff was literally laughed at by other analysts in 2006 for his dire economic predictions.  Of course, he was right.  So why is the media giving him less air time now?  This interview of Peter Schiff by Time Magazine explores that question. 

All of the gold since the time of Christ…

Wow.  The cost of “bailing out” the present economy is already up to six times the value of all of the gold in existence since the time of Christ.

At last count, the Federal Reserve and the government have either lent, guaranteed or spent $12.8 trillion in their efforts to get the economy back on track. We know that these numbers  lose their significance after a while and it’s hard to relate to them but we’ll try…

You may remember a couple of years ago when a study was done by two respected economists estimating that the total cost of the Iraq war would eventually reach $2 trillion. At the time, people were shocked. But compared to the nearly $13 trillion for the economy, the Iraq war expenses now seem small in comparison.

Looking at it another way, the value of all the gold in existence since the time of Christ is currently worth about $2 trillion. In other words, just the costs to bail out the economy and nothing else, like Social Security, military, infrastructure, is so far going to be more than six times all of the gold that’s been produced over the past 2000 years. (Just last December the cost was three times, which illustrates how quickly the costs have multiplied over the past five months.)

That is the cost.  And what do we get for our “money” (I use the term loosely)?  A soon-to-be-worthless fiat currency, devalued savings, redistributed wealth, more crony-capitalism, fascism, legal plunder, socialism, war, and the destruction of what little was left of the free market.

Obama proclaims simpler tax code… “just give us all of it.”

Actually, he didn’t say exactly that, but that would make it a heck of a lot simpler, wouldn’t it.  I admit I got a little tax cut recently.  Unfortunately, the tax cut I got came at the expense of other hard working people (the “wicked rich”), as well as my children and grand children, because the feds did not cut spending concurrently.  In fact, I will probably see the bill in my lifetime, with interest. 

We have yet to learn that there is no such thing as a free lunch.   The government takes our money and spends it where they see fit or simply gives it to others, and tells us we will be better off for it–it will magically multiply.  Unfortunately, the only thing we get is an economy of bubbles, misallocated capital, and redistributed wealth.

We ought to get rid of the income tax altogether.   It is nothing less than forced labor and blatant theft.

The Communist Revolution in America, Part III

A few weeks ago I mentioned the nationalization of the banks by the US government to a Democratic colleague of mine.  He balked, “That’s not nationalization!  They are not controlling the banks, only owning part of them!”  I didn’t buy it then, since it is absurd to own without controlling, but now the issue is beyond question.  The US government is assuming the power to take over failing institutions.  I guess they already “had the power”  to take over banks, now they are broadening that power.    Again, it is time to revisit the ten measures that Marx said would be taken by the rising proletariat in order to overthrow the capitalist system:

1.  Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.

2.  A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.

3.  Abolition of all right of inheritance.

4.  Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.

5.  Centralisation of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.

6.  Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.

7.  Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.

8.  Equal liability of all to labour.  Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.

9.  Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equable distribution of the population
    over the country.

10. Free education for all children in public schools.  Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form.  Combination of education with industrial production, &c., &c.

Bank nationalization?  See item #5 above.   We get closer to #5 every day. 

What other items have we got covered?  #2 is well underway and sure to increase under Obama.  #3 is sure to increase under Obama through increased estate taxes. #6 is already well underway, but the “stimulus” should move us further toward “goal” here.  #1, 7 and #8 are down the road a bit maybe.  #9 is not relevant–they actually want us all in the cities so the earth doesn’t have to be polluted with our presence as much.  And of course #10 was accomplished more than a century ago. 

So there you have it, we have covered more than half of the items.  I’d say we are on the road, wouldn’t you?

I think it is worth revisting the rest of my original post on this topic as well, with special attention to Bakunin’s thoughts (emphasis mine):

Marx believed that this tyranny of the state was only temporary: 

When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character.  Political power, properly so called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another.  If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organise itself as a class, if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class.

In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.

That last scentence actually sounds a bit like libertarianism, though I am not sure what he meant by the last clause, “the condition…”  But don’t be fooled, the tyranny of the State does not go away, as we have seen in Russia, China, and in every other Communist country.  No, rather it is as Bakunin warned.  Read it carefully and tell me you don’t already see it in our America:

But in the People’s State of Marx there will be, we are told, no privileged class at all. All will be equal, not only from the juridical and political point of view but also from the economic point of view. At least this is what is promised, though I very much doubt whether that promise could ever be kept. There will therefore no longer be any privileged class, but there will be a government and, note this well, an extremely complex government. This government will not content itself with administering and governing the masses politically, as all governments do today. It will also administer the masses economically, concentrating in the hands of the State the production and division of wealth, the cultivation of land, the establishment and development of factories, the organization and direction of commerce, and finally the application of capital to production by the only banker – the State. All that will demand an immense knowledge and many heads “overflowing with brains” in this government. It will be the reign of scientific intelligence, the most aristocratic, despotic, arrogant, and elitist of all regimes. There will be a new class, a new hierarchy of real and counterfeit scientists and scholars, and the world will be divided into a minority ruling in the name of knowledge, and an immense ignorant majority. And then, woe unto the mass of ignorant ones!

- Critique of Economic Determinism and Historical Materialism, by Mikhail Bakunin

Woe, indeed.

And can you believe how much Bakunin’s description sounds like the direction of the European and U.S. governments today?  Administering the masses “economically”, administration by a “hierarchy of scholars”:  Think bank bail outs.  Administration by a scientific elite:  Think global warming.  Think stimulus and car czars.

Obama’s economic planning: This should be interesting… and painful.

Obama and his administration apparently think they can successfully plan the economy.  Of course, this is impossible.  A healthy economy is a self-organizing process, the result of unthinkable numbers of interactions among individuals acting in their own self-interest.  Oh, they can certainly plan an economy, but not a healthy one.  It is nothing short of arrogance to imagine that a person or group of persons could plan such a thing.  It’s like thinking we can plan the ecology of the planet, or the weather, only it’s even more ridiculous than those examples, since we’re working here with autonomous, free individuals.  It is impossible and arrogant, but it will be interesting to watch them try.  It would probably even be funny… if it were not painful.

Stimulus vs. Liberty

The Keynesian idea that government deficit spending is the way to stimulate the economy is immoral and erroneous.  The government gets their money either from present taxes, or by borrowing (future taxes).  I won’t mention the third option, fiat creation of currency.  

It is true that I may find it desirable at times to borrow money in hopes of making more money.  I may borrow money to finance a new business, for example.  In such a case, I hope that my investment will pay off in the long run and I will not only pay back my debt, but be better off in the end than I would have been otherwise.

Government stimulus is the government doing all of this for me, against my will.  The government takes out a loan that I must eventually repay.  This is bad news for two reasons.  First, even if it would work out for my financial advantage, it is coercive and violates my freedom to dispose of my property as I see fit.  And in fact, it will not work out for my benefit because the government cannot know better than the free market how best to grow the economy.  

When they presume to know what products should be produced, they presume to know what the self-organizing free market will do (or worse, what it should do).  They set themselves, and my money, against the natural laws of economics.  And what is worse, their decisions are almost certain to be controlled by political expediency and the whims of elite academics and lobbyists, or by some imagined “common good” which is never “good” for any individual.    

Allow the natural forces of the free market to self-organize the economy, and it will grow.  These elitist interventionists think they can better manage an ant mound than the colony can on its own.  Hubris, plain and simple.

“The US Gov’t is like a bunch of kids playing with a chemistry set…”

You have to see this new video by Aravoth on the bail out.  I love it when Peter Schiff says that the government is “like little kids with a chemistry set, and they keep on throwing these chemicals together, trying one thing after another–they hope they’re gonna stumble on a miracle, but they’re gonna blow us all up.”

The auto bail out will help taxpayers?

An Associated Press writer warned of the cost to taxpayers that would ensue if the Feds fail to bail out the auto makers:

The U.S. auto industry’s problems will cost taxpayers plenty whether or not the government helps Detroit.

Just walking away and letting the struggling Big Three automakers go under would drain government coffers by about as much as the $15 billion bridge loan that lawmakers are preparing, and perhaps much more, according to outside analysts. The costs would come from lower tax collections by the federal, state and local governments and the payment of extra unemployment, pension and other benefits to unemployed or retired auto workers.

Wait a minute here.  How do “lower tax collections” cost taxpayers more?  And extra unemployment benefits?  So failing to bailout the big three will cost us because we are going to have to be taxed more to pay the unemployment benefits of the laid-off workers?  So to avoid this we should just pay their wages, is that the idea?  There is something wrong with this picture.

But most importantly, though we may feel some pain in  the shorterm if there is no bailout, the essential market correction will be allowed to take place, and the economy will eventually be stronger for it.  How can it benefit us to prop up unprofitable enterprises, and to do it by taking money from profitable ones?  This is analogous to selling your best cattle to keep the weak alive.  Will the herd be stronger?

It is the same old line we heard about the bank bail outs.  We need to save the irresponsible lenders and borrowers at the expense of the responsible ones. 

In the end, these bail outs redistributed the wealth from the responsible to the irresponsible, and from the successful to the unsuccessful.  That can never be good.

Ho long will we prop these failing businesses up?  How long will we subsidize them?  Until the Japanese have revolutionized transportation and offer flying cars at half the cost of the stagnated Chevys and Fords?  Will they still call for government subsidies and bail outs.  I don’t doubt it.

“Oh, no,”  they say, “the government will make sure the car makers improve and progress–start producing better, more competetive products with greater efficiency and at a lower cost to the consumer.”

Oh?  The government will do better at building cars than private industry?  Since when has the government excelled at efficiency and productivity?

And that’s beside the point.  The point is that this kind of government interference is legal plunder.  It is theft, plain and simple.