Obama's Change

[DWordinger]

William L. Anderson, Ph.D. teaches economics at Frostburg State University in Maryland, is an adjunct scholar of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, and also is a consultant with American Economic Services. He writes

Unfortunately, the president hardly is done remaking the U.S. economy. From declaring war on low-cost energy production to trying further to force doctors to become part of the Department of Health and Human Services bureaucracy, Obama is forcing one sector of the economy after another to bow to his will.

However, taking legal and regulatory control and making an economy become prosperous are two different and mutually-exclusive things. If Obama wants the kind of control that he is demanding, there is no way that a well-oiled, highly-productive economy can arise from such circumstances. Instead, over time, we will get a deflated, poorly-capitalized economy in which we will see deterioration much like what was seen in Great Britain in the three decades after the end of World War II, when the government raised taxes to ruinous levels and took over one sector after another. The nickname was "British Disease," and it seems that Obama wants us to experience it here.

In announcing these new government initiatives, Obama remarked that "we are seeing that the ways of Washington are beginning to change." This is nonsense. Washington always has been about grabbing power and sapping the economic strength of this country. Obama simply is another person in a long line of presidents who have praised the parasites and condemned those who are productive.

Obama’s campaign slogan was, "Change We Can Believe In." Well, I don’t believe he has brought change; he only is ratcheting up the wave of tyranny that comes from Washington, D.C. The end result will be that Americans will be much poorer, but when he runs for election in 2012, Obama will claim that his policies have made us "better off." I will believe it when I see it, but his policies are in violation of all sane laws of economics, and the sorry outcome is inevitable.

But sometimes is hard to see the forest for the trees when you are in the middle of a depression (which the politically correct are still calling a recession). Stanislav Mishin wrote the following for Pravda:

It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American descent into Marxism is happening with breathtaking speed, against the backdrop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.

True, the situation has been well prepared on and off for the past century, especially the past twenty years. The initial testing grounds was conducted upon our Holy Russia and a bloody test it was. But we Russians would not just roll over and give up our freedoms and our souls, no matter how much money Wall Street poured into the fists of the Marxists.

Those lessons were taken and used to properly prepare the American populace for the surrender of their freedoms and souls, to the whims of their elites and betters.

First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather then the classics. Americans know more about their favorite TV dramas then the drama in DC that directly affects their lives. They care more for their "right" to choke down a McDonalds burger or a BurgerKing burger than for their constitutional rights. Then they turn around and lecture us about our rights and about our "democracy". Pride blinds the foolish.

Then their faith in God was destroyed, until their churches, all tens of thousands of different "branches and denominations" were for the most part little more then Sunday circuses and their televangelists and top protestant mega-preachers were more then happy to sell out their souls and flocks to be on the "winning" side of one pseudo-Marxist politician or another. Their flocks may complain, but when explained that they would be on the "winning" side, their flocks were ever so quick to reject Christ in hopes for earthly power. Even our Holy Orthodox churches are scandalously liberalized in America.

The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been record setting, not just in America's short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more then another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Weimar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.

These past two weeks have been the most breathtaking of all. First came the announcement of a planned redesign of the American Byzantine tax system, by the very thieves who used it to bankroll their thefts, loses and swindles of hundreds of billions of dollars. These make our Russian oligarchs look little more then ordinary street thugs, in comparison. Yes, the Americans have beaten our own thieves in the shear volumes. Should we congratulate them?

These men, of course, are not an elected panel but made up of appointees picked from the very financial oligarchs and their henchmen who are now gorging themselves on trillions of American dollars, in one bailout after another. They are also usurping the rights, duties and powers of the American congress (parliament). Again, congress has put up little more then a whimper to their masters.

Then came Barack Obama's command that GM's (General Motors) president step down from leadership of his company. That is correct, dear reader, in the land of "pure" free markets, the American president now has the power, the self-given power, to fire CEOs and we can assume other employees of private companies, at will. Come hither, go dither, the centurion commands his minions.

So it should be no surprise, that the American president has followed this up with a "bold" move of declaring that he and another group of unelected, chosen stooges will now redesign the entire automotive industry and will even be the guarantee of automobile policies. I am sure that if given the chance, they would happily try and redesign it for the whole of the world, too. Prime Minister Putin, less then two months ago, warned Obama and UK's Blair, not to follow the path to Marxism, it only leads to disaster. Apparently, even though we suffered 70 years of this Western-sponsored horror show, we know nothing, as foolish, drunken Russians, so let our "wise" Anglo-Saxon fools find out the folly of their own pride.

Again, the American public has taken this with barely a whimper...but a "freeman" whimper.

So, should it be any surprise to discover that the Democratically controlled Congress of America is working on passing a new regulation that would give the American Treasury department the power to set "fair" maximum salaries, evaluate performance and control how private companies give out pay raises and bonuses? Senator Barney Franks, a social pervert basking in his homosexuality (of course, amongst the modern, enlightened American societal norm, as well as that of the general West, homosexuality is not only not a looked-down-upon life choice, but is often praised as a virtue) and his Marxist enlightenment, has led this effort. He stresses that this only affects companies that receive government monies, but it is retroactive and taken to a logical extreme, this would include any company or industry that has ever received a tax break or incentive.

The Russian owners of American companies and industries should look thoughtfully at this and the option of closing their facilities down and fleeing the land of the Red as fast as possible. In other words, divest while there is still value left.

The proud American will go down into his slavery with out a fight, beating his chest and proclaiming to the world, how free he really is. The world will only snicker.