With No Hope for Change, Obfuscate!
By Mary Theroux • Wednesday May 23, 2012 9:54 AM PDT • 10 Comments
With every Keynesian trick having failed to bring the economy out of its post-meltdown Great Recession, and having apparently concluded that there’s no more conjuring they can do to improve it before the election, President Obama’s re-election strategists look to be latching firmly onto social issues.
Really? In an era of continuing depression-level unemployment (masked only by workers giving up the search for jobs), galloping domestic government spending and debt unbound from reality for the past decade, and the very real specter of a global meltdown in our future, the most important issue for the President of the United States to weigh in on—and for national media to devote untold ink and bytes to—is same-sex marriage: a policy the president has no authority over?
Meanwhile, President Obama used the delivery of his commencement address to graduates of Barnard College to continue foisting the myth of Obamacare as pro-woman legislation:
Of course, as young women, you’re also going to grapple with some unique challenges, like ... whether you’ll be able to fully control decisions about your own health.
So, let’s see: a 2,000+ page piece of legislation that mandates the terms of exactly what kind of healthcare coverage every single woman in America must purchase or be provided by her employer or the government (a/k/a her “daddy state”); that includes the provision for an unelected panel of political appointees subject to no citizen or representative oversight to review and decide what medical procedures should and should not be “approved” for coverage under this new legislation—represents decisions individual women will “fully control”?
And, by the way, there actually is something the President could do about the economy, and that would have an impact before the election: he could do as Truman did following FDR’s death that brought about the end of the Great Depression following World War II: end regime uncertainty by reversing the endless recent piling on of legislation and regulations that has frozen the engines of the American economy—as evidenced by businesses sitting with over $2 trillion of cash on the sidelines. America would get back to work now just as it did then: with the post-World War II economy growing at double-digits even as 10 million unemployed (soldiers released from military duty) were dumped into a market that hadn’t previously been able to use them, government spending dropped 60% over two years, and the “New Deal” was abandoned wholesale. A recipe Keynesians predicted would return the U.S. to the Depression instead fueled the Happy Days longed for by the New Dealers and the rationed, conscripted World War II-era citizenry.
The fortunes of imperial Washington and that of the people are inversely correlated. Today’s Baby Boomers—and their children and grandchildren now reaching adulthood—would thus do well to learn the lessons of what created the “Baby Boom” of the post-War era, refuse to be duped by the political pandering currently standing in for solutions, and demand change that makes a difference.
A good start would be to accept that no one who has or will live at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is the savior, and establish the institutions and associations that have been the hallmark of Americans’ as innovatively solving social issues as economic. Case study examples and models for the provision of medical care, unemployment insurance, sickness insurance, etc.; universal education; security services and criminal justice; hospitals, schools, and libraries; alleviating human organ shortages; and far more can be found in The Voluntary City, Democracy in America, Entrepreneurial Economics, and more.
Tags: American History, Bailouts, Budget and Tax Policy, Business, Economics, Elections, Employment, Free Market, Healthcare, Imperialism, Nanny State, Unemployment, Women 
Although Mr.Obama is totally incompetent and unqualified to be President,the question to ask is: Would it have made any difference,over the last 3 years,if John McCain would have been elected President instead of Mr.Obama? I doubt it. The real power in America are the “men behind the curtain,” which is the Power Elites that control the Banking,Money and credit Systems in America. This control of credit,which is the Federal Reserve Banking Cartel, has the power to create money out of thin air. The President or the government don’t “run” the economy. They can only hurt the Economy by overspending,over regulating and putting a nations citizens in debt. The real power are the Elites behind the throne.
libertarian jerry | May 23, 2012 | Reply
It saddens me that 30 years ago when the trickle down theory was offered and implemented. People today still haven’t figured it out. And we continue not to learn who, beginning with Warren G Harding and continuing through to Calvin Coolidge and yes up to Herbert Hoover, who began the Depression?.... the RICH!.......These people have no clue how to manage a budget. They didn’t back then when they were given everything and gave nothing back. Thus started the Panic of 1929! By then it was too late. They used slogans and fear to continue it all the way up to WW2, what they do not realize or care not to, is their policies have consequences and yes it will affect those with the least the most. But sooner or later will come a day of reckoning for them also! And their will be no one there to help. For as the guy said at TED meeting, the rich do not provide jobs, it is the consumer! Wake up people.
James | May 23, 2012 | Reply
I tend to agree with libertarian jerry on this. We all know Obama is incompetent ... but the alternative was probably no better.
Rat9 | May 23, 2012 | Reply
As Jerry states, and C. Wright Mills wrote 60 years ago, the power elite are our rulers. It makes no differeence which candidate gets elected; both are owned by the power elite, as has been true for many past elections. Is is not obvious? Apparently not to to the masses.
richard | May 24, 2012 | Reply
Gentlemen:
Agreed. Thus, my concluding paragraph: “...no one who has or will live at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue”—in other words, NO president—”is the savior.”
Thus, it is high time to stop pretending that if we just elect the “right guy” (or gal) everything will be OK.
No. NO president is going to solve things. It is up to we the people to reclaim our rights and powers and understand that only we can and must create the solutions. American history is rich in this tradition and we foolishly abandoned these voluntary institutions as we became “progressive.” Thus we find ourselves where we are today: mired in a debt and poverty trap, in a culture bankrupt of civil institutions.
Best wishes,
Mary
Mary Theroux | May 24, 2012 | Reply
And it appears we will have a very poor choice in November as well.
Keith | May 24, 2012 | Reply
James. We would point out that the Federal Reserve’s credit expansion during the 1920s was responsible for the Great Depression which was then prolonged and deepened as a result of government interventions under Hoover and then greatly expanded under FDR that created enormous upheaval and prevented the market from covering from the original Fed bubble. The Depression as a result did not end until the New Deal was scrapped after WWII when 12 million people were released from military employment into the civilian workforce, wage and price controls were abandoned, and federal spending was cut by 1/3. Sadly, the U.S. government continues to pursue such disastrous policies today.
“Regime Uncertainty: Why the Great Depression Lasted So Long and Why Prosperity Resumed after the War,” by Robert Higgs (The Independent Review)
Depression, War, and Cold War: Challenging the Myths of Conflict and Prosperity, by Robert Higgs
David Theroux | May 29, 2012 | Reply
Mary,
On the one hand you say that Truman lifted large parts of the legislation and allowed the post war recovery to begin. On the other you say that no incumbent of the White House can make the economy grow.
Do you mean that though a president can’t create growth or that he (or she) CAN create the conditions for growth?
Yours, John
John Harrison | May 30, 2012 | Reply
That’s correct, John. The president cannot “make” the economy grow: only entrepreneurs create economic growth; government can only redistribute.
Policy can and does either encourage or discourage growth, and current policy is creating a climate of “regime uncertainty”—uncertainty as to what the costs of doing business will be: changing tax and regulatory environment, the unknowns of Obamacare on the cost of employment, hostile anti-business rhetoric (“vampire capitalism”), etc.
This uncertainty discourages entrepreneurial activity and accounts for the nearly $3 trillion in cash that American businesses are holding—earning almost 0% returns in today’s low-interest rate world—rather than risk investing in expansion or jobs that they cannot project profitability from given these unknowns.
Mr. Obama is the primary source of today’s uncertainty as FDR was for that which prolonged the Great Depression. Thus, the president can and must reverse the trend, in order to create a climate in which entrepreneurs wish to invest in activities that grow the economy.
With best wishes,
Mary
Mary Theroux | May 30, 2012 | Reply
The president and congress cannot grow the economy, but they can influence it’s growth by easing regulations on corporations and setting sound policies that industry can live and prosper with. Too many laws and socialist programs hurt corporations, when government gets involved corporations are no longer profitable and move off shore or go out of business. Our country has gone from an industry leader, 50 years ago to an importer for almost every product we consume. We are a nation living on credit with very little equity. These changes came about by regulations and social programs passed by congress in the last 50 years. It’s our country and it’s up to us to do something about it before it goes bankrupt.
Bob | Jun 3, 2012 | Reply