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Rajjpuut's Folly: Obama Uses Impressive “Mulligan-Power” on Nine Key Issues

Posted by Bob VanDeHey on January 22, 2011 at 12:30am
 

“Do-Over King” Barack Obama Profits

from Media-Induced Mental Fog among Voters

 

            Of all the endearing movies featuring and flaunting quirky leading man Bill Murray, two are especially memorable. In the one produced first, he eschewed straight comedy for serious dramatics and,  thanks to some excellent script writing, Murray and Catherine Hicks, James Keach and Theresa Russell easily outdid the sensational 1946 quartet of Tyrone Power, Gene Tierney, John Payne and Anne Baxter from the beloved silver screen classic version of The Razor’s Edge. Along the way, the theme from author W. Somerset Maugham’s novel becomes even more phenomenally stark and yet somehow eternally light-hearted and much, much clearer (even though the character “Maugham” himself was written completely out of Murray’s 1984 version). As strong as Murray is in The Razor’s Edge,however, the unforgettable dramatic/comedy vehicle for which Murray will be eternally toasted is 1993’s Groundhog Day . . . .

            This more than bizarre (surreal?) fantasy in which a misanthropic, self-important weatherman Phil Connors relives the same day, February 2nd (the single day of the year he most despises; in the place he most despises Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania; during the event he most despises: Groundhog Day Festivities), over and over and over again without hope for reprieve . . . has been embraced by the Buddhist fate and has even entered American slang lexicon as a shorthand term for any miserable, seemingly inescapable recurring fact of life.

 

"A thousand people freezing their butts off, waiting to worship a rat," Weatherman Connors gripes.

 

            The American Buddhist movement finds the movie a strong allegory for life in general and for their religion more specifically. In real life as it’s lived by we, the non-believers in Buddhist Nirvana, however, Groundhog Day has come to the Oval Office courtesy of the ceaseless Obama-adulation by the mainsteam media (MSM).  Let us adopt Sara Palin’s more accurate “lame-stream media” here for they have made the President appear not, as a cat with nine lives, but rather as a jaguar with 9,000. So far as it is within their power they have created a politician who really can’t fall short on anything. If the president bashes business and the financial industry ceaselessly for two consecutive years he has but to name a Chicago crony who happens to carry some business experience as an advisor and he suddenly becomes magnanimous in his “outreach to the business world.” No matter how great or repetitive his mistakes, let the Great Barack make even the slightest symbolic gesture of reasonableness while posturing for the media and . . . suddenly all his long-standing substantial errors and sins are forgiven, for the Anointed One has given the appearance of statesmanship. 

To say this was “all smoke and mirrors” would be demeaning magicians everywhere. This is rather, all freely-given PR puffery designed to glorify Obama. Consider these nine key areas as impartially as possible:

 

Jobs

Spending

Foreign Policy

Leadership

Fairness, Openness, Bi-Partisanship

The Gulf Oil Spill

GIBs and GSBs (Obamacare in particular)

Relationship with Business

Keeping Promises

           

            The unbiased observer must give the President nine F’s for nine substantial failures. In fact, however, the man’s “Messiah” status is ever-reinforced ever more desperately with each pathetic showing he makes. Consider more closely:

 

JOBS: 17.6% of America’s people are unemployed in real measurement. 9.5% are still looking for jobs and thus still on the labor rolls, the rest have given up; many are substantially UNDERemployed. Obama promised once his $787 BIllion stimulus package was passed in February, 2009, that unemployment would not exceed 8%. In the upcoming State of the Union address he will pretend that the country was on the brink of a Great Depression and only the quick thinking of he and his Democrats was able to save us . . . at no small expense . . . and the MSM will sell that unenlightened viewpoint as Gospel. By the way, if the official “unemployment” statistic is ridiculous, then the Obama “jobs saved” stat is absolute horse pucky.

 

SPENDING: Obama’s sycophant-girl, Nancy Pelosi, has echoed the party line that deficit reduction and reduction of the National Debt has long been a top concern among Democrats and “Deficit Reduction has been our mantra.” Pelosi and the House Democrats last year refused to pass a budget because it would have been the country’s first $5 TRillion budget and required $1.6 TRillion in deficits.  Then there’s the little matter of the $14.1 TRillion National Debt which has increased $5 TRillion under Democratic house leadership which is 56% in four years.  Besides the bailouts and Obama stimulus, Obamacare will increase deficits by $300 Billion yearly while claiming it reduces deficits. The MSM abets Pelosi, Reid and Obama at every turn for their humane and far-thinking new approach.

FOREIGN POLICY: Despite Obama’s “Apology Tour”; repeatedly breaking promises to allies while embracing those who have no love for the United States and orally wish us ill; kowtowing to Eastern potentates and premiers; and doing everything possible to make the nation appear and be weak, weak, weak . . . the MSM has refused to analyze, investigate or seemingly even care about the utterly negative Obama legacy in foreign policy. Did they report in depth on his shabby treatment of Israel? On the weakness toward Iran and Russia implicit in not building the promised missile defense for our eastern European allies?   No, naturally no. But they couldn’t wait to fall all over themselves in slobbering joy proclaiming the START treaty with Russia was not a shameful sell-out but somehow a wonderful coup.

LEADERSHIP: More than anything else, the election of the nation’s first Black president was supposed to usher in a new era of enlightenment in racial matters and tolerance at all levels. Polls on the subject say that relations between the races have gotten worse under our first “post-racial” president. And, up till his recent posturing as a “centrist president” now that the Republicans dominate the House, President Obama led the way by constant race-baiting; and stupid stances like getting involved in the Cambridge arrest in early 2009 that led to his infamous “Beer Summit.” Mr. Obama has also threatened freedom of speech and freedom of the press by his constant attacks upon FoxNews and the TEA Party. Instead of leadership, Obama has constantly whined and called all those who dislike his policies as racists, haters, extremists and stupid. People fifty times as patriotic as the President then were subject to one hundred times the abuse by the MSM and by the most progressive elements of the Democratic Leadership.

 

FAIRNESS, OPENNESS and BI-PARTISANSHIP: Mr. Obama promised to change the culture of Washington and to give us “hope and change we could believe in. He talked about having TV cameras involved so that people could see every aspect of the health care deliberations and like his favorite YES MAN, Harry Reid in the Senate and YES GIRL, Nancy Pelosi in the House, Obama promised to run the most open, honest and accountable administration in history. Instead he’s overseen the most corrupt, closed, dishonest and unaccountable administration since Woodrow Wilson. Just the matter of those 42 non-vetted Obama Czars speaks volumes . . . of course, it would have been impossible to get all those admitted communists and radicals into the White House any other way. The MSM did nothing to hold Obama’s feet to the fire . . . he was given a free pass on all of this. The Van Jones affair was classic MSM. While FoxNews and others were revealing video clips of Jones talking openly about revolution and his communism and his 9/11 Truther activities for two and a half months, the MSM ran a 30 second clip the day after Van Jones “resigned.”

 

THE GULF OIL SPILL: It took the Obama administration six weeks to really get involved and their involvement in the first two weeks thereafter was making speeches about how they’d been on the ground dealing with the issue since the first few hours it was known about. Then, like all leftists, Obama made a horrible situation worse . . . first his EPA would not allow the building of sand berms and other defenses against the spill (because they might harm the environment); and then he cost the nation loads of oil and the Gulf loads of jobs with his six month moratorium on drilling which is now nearing nine months and which is projected to last 2.5 years. The MSM hardly covered these important matters but found a patsy in the BP President and made Mr. Obama into a hero, as usual.  Will they love him as much when gasoline is $4.50 per gallon?

 

GIBs and GSBs (OBAMACARE in particular): Like the oil spill made worse by government involvement, GIBs and GSBs (Government interference and government spending boondoggles) are the utter limits of arrogance with the federal government showing they know best and in the process taking over more of American life and making it worse. In the case of Obamacare the lies involved are incredible, and of course the MSM will not deal with them or expose them to the public. Mr. Obama personally pledged that zero federal dollars would be used to fund abortions under Obamacare but we found out in the first week that the program went into operation that abortions were routinely covered by Obamacare. They added money to other programs in two other bills (Medicare and Medicaid) so they could show the Congressional Budget Office false numbers that would make Obamacare look like it would lower the deficit when in truth the big picture is that 30 million people are added to the program at a far greater expense than the private sector would have caused and the program is another entitlement GSB, GIB that will dramatically ramp up the National Debt and the yearly deficits. In addition we have stimulus funds that only stimulated the pocketbooks for Obama supporters and created no new jobs; the laughable “Cars for Clunkers” which claimed that destroying perfectly good cars would jumpstart the economy (all it did was create a massive shortage of used cars and drive the price of the typical used car upward by $1,800); the AIG and auto bailouts; the takeover not only of health care but of the financial industry, the student loan industry, and now the beginning of the coal industry. And the MSM has been applauding every step of the way.

 

BUSINESS RELATIONSHIPS: Mr. Obama spent the first two years of his administration feathering the cap of the unions and taking every possible opportunity to bash business, business people, finance, financial people, capitalists and conservatives all the while imposing all manner of extra bureaucracy and expense upon the free markets . . . MSM cheering every step of the way. Now as he makes cozy to enhance his 2012 presidential bid, little is made of his hypocrisy.

 

KEEPING PROMISES: From Guantanamo Bay to Afghanistan and all the promises mentioned above . . . President Obama has made a splendid career of promising out of one side of his mouth and alibi-ing out of the other. It’s likely that Barack Obama will at the end of the day (as a one-term president) actually only keep two promises, both made in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle on the 2008 campaign trail:

a.      To bankrupt the coal industry

b.     To make the price of electricity skyrocket

Actually, that’s only one promise since 52% of our electricity comes from coal . . .

     Of course, the MSM gives Mr. Obama free rein to do as he pleases and enthusiastically supported him in 2008 and will support him in 2012. Call them “mulligans,” “do-overs” or Groundhog Day . . . the tremendous leeway that Obama has received from the MSM amounts to about 25 times the tolerance given to his predecessor and about 30 times what they’ve allotted to the TEA Party . . . .

 

Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut

 
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Rajjpuut's Folly: Recent Research Conclusive, Incumbent Politician's KILL jobs

Posted by Bob VanDeHey on June 12, 2010 at 10:00pm


Harvard Study Reveals: Incumbents KILL jobs

FACTS are Facts, Incumbent Spending KILLS jobs***

OH, my GOD! OH, my GOD! OH, my GOD! OH, my GOD! Rajjpuut, who distrusts big government mightily, has seldom enjoyed writing anything as much as this blog . . . . it began with a recent Rasmussen poll that said that only 18% of likely voters believed that additional government spending would help the economy. Were they right, those 18%? Certainly our president acts like he believes they’re right. Where to find the truth, where to turn?

Truth is crucially important to the well-being of a democratic-republic. Unfortunately, the newspaper of today is quickly becoming a dinosaur. Meanwhile, only one among the large broadcast TV news organizations is actually trusted more than doubted (FOX News) according to media polls from the last few years. Six important things that clearly can be and must be said about mainstream “lamestream media” today (whether broadcast or print media) are:

1. They love talking to politicians and celebrities in other fields like sports and entertainment.

2. They seem to believe it’s impossible to learn much about government from everyday citizens.

3. They actually believe that a politician and what he/she has to say is “important news” to the detriment of actually chasing down real news about the pain politicians bring into our daily lives and reading and studing proposed laws.

4. They have virtually no curiosity and believe almost anything a liberal or progressive politician tells them and doubt virtually everything a conservative politician utters. And, thus lacking that all-essential curiosity . . . .

5. Add little of value to the American scene. The so-called “Fourth Estate” has degenerated into public relations helpers for the political class (politicians and those whose jobs or livelihood are enhanced by politicians).

6. They have long ago forgotten what real journalism is about.

Rajjpuut intends to remind them what journalism is all about. Let’s take a look at their “a-curiosity” or “in-curiosity” a bit closer . . . at their tendency to believe what politicians they favor tell them and what Americans themselves believe about incumbents. One of the biggest reasons that term limits for congressmen has been an unpopular item is the perpetual editorial you’ll see about the need to maintain the status quo and support a district’s rep or state’s senator because that incumbent is seen as valuable. The idea that virtually all idiot mainstream media hold dear is that incumbency translates into tangible benefits that can be measured economically and in prestige. A one-word definition of that economic and prestige benefit? PORK!

Of course that old wives’ tale is based upon the most common economic myth of all, that private sector jobs can be efficiently and profitably be created by actions that politicians make. Bah humbug! This myth is the bedrock foundation of that idiotic notion known as “Keynesian Economics.” Keynesians consistently claim to have refuted the commonsense proposition that if 75% of all tax dollars were returned to the taxpayers and politicians had to live within a sound budget on the other 25%, this country would see a resurgence of unbelievable proportions . . . an economic miracle that would within half a decade eliminate our national debt and within four decades wipe out all the non-funded obligations. More on proving that later . . . but lets talk about PORK . . . .

While it might be true that PORK helps some, let’s say 3-4% of the populace, it’s undeniable that PORK and other unwise government spending boondoggles and government interference boondoggles (GSBs and GIBs) depreciates the lives of 96% of all American businesses and individuals. However, that last sentence is totally at odds with the myth we’ve been talking about. This myth about the value to a district of an incumbent representative and therefore the need to continually re-elect him is the single greatest driving force behind the swallowing-whole of the private sector by the government . . . . which occurred slowly since 1933, but which has accelerated under progressive politicians from LBJ to the present . . . to be concise every president except Ronald Reagan.

You remember Ronald Reagan, the fellow in office when the Berlin Wall came down and 21 million new jobs were created? And remember this, Reagan was obstructed by Democratic majorities in the house of representatives (the Contract with America in 1994, was the first time that Republicans held a majority there since 1954) for all eight years. He was forced to compromise with the Democrats and let through a huge shipload (whatever) of unwise spending bills to get his tax cuts approved. And Reagan wasn’t proud of the deficits and debt created on his watch . . . but what else could he do? The decade of the 90’s became the second most productive in history given the impetus of Reagan’s years (the most productive was the Roaring 20’s – more on that in a moment).

Four months ago, three Harvard professors at that university’s School of Business (Lauren Cohen, Joshua Coval and Christopher Malloy) were researching the “Benefits of PORK myth.” By the way, ‘tis a well known fact that in large part, our universities are dominated by left-wing professors and even our business schools presumably are mostly believers in the Keynesian myths that the Nobel Prize people find so enthralling . . . so it’s utterly REFRESHING to find real curiosity among professors about government activities. Anyway, back to the chase: the threesome named above were examing correlations between “politically-connected firms and powerful legislative chairmen” when the rock they tripped over turned out to be the ultimate gold nugget of truth. In a phrase their serendipity kicked up the troublesome fact that GOVERNMENT SPENDING KILLS JOBS or as Mark Hemingway at Beltway Confidential put it . . . WHEN GOVERNMENT SPENDING GROWS, THE PRIVATE SECTOR SHRINKS. And as they got deeper into it, they concluded that SPENDING by INCUMBENT POLITICIANS KILLS JOBS. You can look over their research (finished three months back) here:

http://www.utahwfc.org/2010_papers/power.pdf

Or here:

http://www.people.hbs.edu/cmalloy/pdffiles/envaloy.pdf

Their study examining government earmark and budget data from the past four decades – found this trend to be consistent across all variables. Specifically, it affected both large and small firms in large and small states, and it followed the ascension of committee chairmen in both the House and Senate. The study found also that damage to the private sector was “partially reversed” when the committee chairmen either lost their seats or retired.

Let us be clear here, these three professors did what journalists should have long ago done, they went to study the assumption (in logic known as the “premise”) that as a state’s congressional delegation grew in stature and power in Washington, D.C., local businesses would benefit from the increased federal spending sure to come their way . . . but they discovered that the opposite was true. Indeed, companies experienced lower sales and downsized, cutback, retooled and retrenched by cutting payroll, R&D budgets, and virtually all other expenses. Their study showed that as incumbency acculated following a congressman’s ascendancy to the chairmanship of important committees, the average firm in his state cut back capital expenditures by roughly 15 percent.

Now Rajjpuut can hear the scared liberals and progressives in particular screaming, “But, but, that’s . . . just one study.” That’s true. One study that cries out for term limits for politicians and limited government and utter fiscal responsibility.

Here’s a slightly related study:

http://www.icis.com/blogs/green-chemicals/2009/04/the-price-of-green-jobs-learn.html

This link is about a study in which a government spending boondggle took Spain from a booming economy with 3% unemployment 13-14 years ago, to being only behind Greece among struggling European countries and to 17.8% unemployment last year and almost 21% this year. How? By forcing their country into a green jobs commitment similar to what President Obama is now proposing. Obviously, the Spanish citizens are NOT better off because of government spending and government interference. Notice those words in italics “by forcing.” No matter what country you live in, politicians tend to accumulate power and status as they accumulate “tenure.” As power nears abolute power, corruptness such as the PORK in the Harvard study and the “forcible rape” of Spain grow more and more probable. Power can corrupt. Absolute power virtually always does corrupt . . . .

Ya’ll live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut

*** three brief essays to convince anyone who “buys into” common sense are:

http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/rdPncl1.html

the most famous essay in economics but one the Keynesians pretend doesn’t exist

http://jim.com/econ/chap02p1.html

is “The Broken Window” parable

http://jim.com/econ/chap01p3.html

is the “one lesson”

http://jim.com/econ/

is the entire book “Economics in one Lesson” from which the broken window and one lesson come

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Rajjpuut's Folly: What exactly is a job? A government job? A REAL job?

Posted by Bob VanDeHey on June 10, 2010 at 9:00pm


Recently President Obama waxed positively orgasmic over the “creation” of 443,000 “new jobs” in the economy. De-emphasized in his glowing report was the fact that 411,000 of these “new” jobs were temporary census positions and not real jobs at all. By the way the Census department has 560,000 odd employees and roughly a full 150,000 of them are permanent employees. Since the cost of running the census this year was $14+ Billion or roughly $10 Billion more than it cost to count everybody in 2000; and since those permanent employees must logically speaking not have much to do for 9.5 years of every ten within the census cycle . . . a whole lot of waste seems to be wrapped up in this particular government department, no?

Waste in government is pervasive and all of it kills jobs. In a similar way, common sense would rule against 90+% of all government spending programs and 88% of all new laws. Without term limits for congress, the evil done by career politicians and particularly progressive Republican and Democratic career politicos feeding at the public trough has become almost fatal to the country as a whole. Perhaps they should wait two days for every ten pages of a proposed new law and cuss and discuss it thoroughly . . . . so the 3,000 page Obamacare bill finally passed would require a minimum of, say, 21 months to get the bill right . . . or better yet, pass a realistic and helpful 150 page law over a period of one month. In any case, government spending annihilates jobs and destroys the private sector. Back to the Census . . . .

In fairness, this is nothing new, President Clinton made a huge deal about a bunch of very similar “new” jobs in 2000 precisely ten years earlier and presumably President George H. W. Bush did so also in 1990 and President Jimmy Carter likewise in 1980, etc., etc. This is, of course, a big lie and the jobs in question are, of course, false entities by any reasonable understanding . . . virtually as soon as they’re “created” they disappear from the economy. Let’s delve more deeply into this matter . . . .

Because of population growth, the American economy right now requires averaging 250,000 “new” jobs to be created every single month just so our official UNemployment rate can stay the same (coming out of college or high school every June etc. we add three million new job-seekers every year . . . as we’ve seen, it doesn’t seem to matter to the politicians whether or not the jobs in question can reasonably be considered REAL jobs or not. To the more reasonable among us, a.k.a. “taxpayers,” however, it makes a huge difference. REAL jobs are permanent and they help slightly offset all the government tax-spending jobs out there which are now being created hand over fist. For now, let that definition of a “REAL job” suffice. Let’s look at government jobs and their characteristics, what are the differences between government jobs and real jobs?

Government jobs tend to be . . .

1. Artificial concepts not precisely “necessary” in the big picture. Are, for example, government census workers and government people examining bee population shifts, and government people researching “human dating behavior” strictly needed? What great loss to society would occur if they didn’t exist? How much taxpayer money would be saved if these jobs were eliminated (or if census workers asked one-third the questions)?

2. Government jobs are UNproductive. No goods or services are added to the country as a result of their existence.

3. Government jobs tend to pay more, thus putting the potentially best and most productive people into Unproductive positions.

4. Government jobs tend to have the greatest benefits adding to the overall cost and since their retirement benefits are among the greatest, that payment goes on sucking away at the country’s lifeblood long after these workers retire.

5. Government jobs tend to have the most substantial perquisites (perks). It isn’t just the President whose actual job cost cannot be calculated, but virtually all the upper echelon government employees whose perks bleed the rest of us dry.

6. Government jobs are destroyers of REAL jobs in the REAL economy. Spain was the poster-child for the European Union about a decade back with a booming economy and only 3% unemployment. Then they adopted a “green-jobs” policy. Today Spain’s unemployment is just over 20%. President Obama threatened us with the creation of five million green jobs. Since the $675,000 subsidization cost of each Spanish green job cost 2.2 jobs in the real Spanish economy, we could expect losing eleven million real jobs?

7. Jobs that create a whole artificial group (the “political class”) within our society which seeks to perpetuate itself and enlarge itself and its budgets at all costs. The “imperatives” of this new “special interest group” seem to be contrary to the interests and needs of mainstream Americans.

8. Jobs whose creation is aligned with bigger, more onerous government, more red tape and more likelihood of finding a “boot on our neck.”

9. Jobs which tend to be temporary such as the census workers’ situation. In the recent Spanish studies of their economic collapse. It was revealed that only one in ten of the green jobs they created actually lasted much beyond the original funding period. In terms of Mr. Obama’s proposal to create five million new green-tech jobs, that means that he’d only be creating 500,000 permanent jobs (at a cost of eleven million real permanent jobs, remember).

10. Jobs for which the real cost is never shown, or even ever known. How much does it cost to have a President of the United States? Obvious things like salary, upkeep of the White House and paying for the White House staff, security, Air Force One, Camp David, travel and entertaining foreign dignitaries and an extensive communications grid in place pale before the perks of the office. Look at the inaugurations, the presidential balls, bringing in of entertainers like Paul McCartney, etc, how much does it cost to have a president of the United States. Rajjpuut estimates this one employee costs us DIRECTLY at least $1 Billion. The indirect cost of Mr. Obama, personally is, of course, potentially in the hundreds of TRillions of dollars and that’s just the money cost . . . . How much does it cost to have an Environmental Protection Agency that puts 40% of some central California workers out of a job by insisting that a two-inch fish was endangered by irrigation pumps to water the vegetable basket of the nation?

11. Sometimes a job whose existence is onerous and an abomination to much of the rest of the country: IRS agents come to mind.

12. Political, often, by their very nature rather than neutral. Jobs aligned with OSHA and the EPA, for example tend to be created by liberals. Defense contracts tend to be created by actions from conservatives.

13. A situation where not only Unproductive but often actually slipshod work is done. Look at our present Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Laws were put in place in 1990 and 1994 to protect our safety. The Bush and Obama administration “signed off” on many of these safety requirements for British Petroleum (such as the need for ten fire booms on site – there were ZERO fire booms present when the explosion occurred). Indeed, the governmental regulation agency MMS was prepared to give BP its highest safety award five or six days after the explosion occurred – that notion is now on hold, and no award has been granted. One of the biggest series of pathetic and scary jokes is the notion of “Close enough for government work.”

14. Often a job where ethical considerations are routinely NOT even considered. During the Bush administration, a governmental oversight group found out that oil companies were routinely wining, dining, having sex with, and providing drugs for the governmental employees charged with oversight for the oil industry. NICE.

15. Despite the “merit system,” of exams, etc. created for civil servants a job given to political friends more often than not. Of all the stimulus funds thus far over 68% has been spent in areas that voted disproportionately for Obama over Mc Cain in 2008. Even though many more actual counties either voted for Mc Cain or slightly-favored Obama , only 31% of the total stimulus funds went there.

16. Despite the so-called merit system, a job given to certain preferred portions of society over the rest of society. Affirmative action in government hiring has been an abysmal failure. The Sotomayor fire-fighter case highlighted some of the obvious discrepancies.

17. Often a job that works at cross-purposes to the rest of society. Rajjpuut recently found himself with a suspended driver’s license courtesy of a ridiculous clerical error when a paid speeding ticket dropped through the cracks in the system. When asked how to get the matter straightened out . . . ‘you’ll have to wait 30 days that’s the requirement, can’t get around it,” no way to correct their mistake . . . . So many of burdensome errors and deliberate red tape and obstruction and waste of time in society is attributable to government officiousness. OSHA and the IRS and EPA cost of tens of billions of dollars every year. Teachers across the nation (hired by the school districts but loyal only to their union) are now teaching that the Founding Fathers were tyrants and racists and otherwise no goodniks while praising labor unions and socialism in their classes. In Los Angeles the lie that the two Arizona immigration laws are racist has been ordered taught in civics classes. One L.A. history making a "field trip" to Arizona to protest the Arizona immigration law before travelling posed before a mural in their school with Castro, Che Guevarra, Uncle Ho and Lenin. Three other L.A. social studies teachers are overtly and directly emphasizing to Hispanic students (at least 40% of them illegals) the need for a Revolution within the United States to give back lands lost by Mexico in 1946's Mexican-American War . . . . which government are these govt. employees working for?

18. Many government jobs are “make-work” creations designed to expand the empire of some muckety-muck bureaucrat. Promotions routinely come (all out of proportion to actual “production”) to those in government who command the most money . . . which usually means those who command the most subordinates. Expand the “scope” of your office (usually unnecessarily and unwisely) and get promoted to a higher position where you, of course, want to expand again. Activity is easily confused for results in government . . . .

19. Without exception, governmental regulatory jobs are absolutely dominated by the industries they supposedly oversee – remember our example of the (literally) in bed together relationship between the big oil companies and MMS. For another example, at the managerial and supervisory levels, the FDA is virtually, the best job in the world for ex-bigwig pharmaceutical workers to consider. The ethics, or lack thereof, of this incestuous relationship literally kills many Americans every year. What is the number three cause of deaths and number five cause of hospital visits in the country? Huge numbers of "iatrogenic" deaths and injuries from legally prescribed medicines result every year from FDA incompetence. The ADA and its oversight of the food industry is presumably even less compent than the FDA now, over a century since Sinclair Lewis wrote his blockbuster novel, "The Jungle" exposing corruption and uncleanliness in the American food industry.

20. Require “emergency” spending virtually every year. To “justify their budgets, government agencies routinely find themselves spending money willy-nilly so that next year’s budget can be as large or larger.

21. Is often a necessary job, which when done rightly puts the job occupant out of work. This happens when a war is won, for example. But most of the time on the rare occasion when a government job has solved the problem it was created to end, the job is somehow made a permanent drain upon society. In fact, it’s often a job whose self-perpetuation is an actual danger to the country. Most people do not know that originally, the U.S. congress met every other year for 140 days only. Texas in its wisdom has a similar part-time legislature even today. The cost to the nation of a permanent legislature is incalculable, bad laws clearly outnumber good ones by about a 12/1 ratio. Then there’s the pork and other corruptions that occur because of the need to get re-elected of the incumbent rascals that have already hurt us . . . etc., etc., ad nauseum.

22. A government job is quite often a position whose day-to-day operating standards and procedures defy all logic. Families or small businesses who operated using the same guidelines that government routinely follows would be quickly ruined. Big businesses could survive a bit longer but who can operate successfully a) without a budget such as our present Congress is now doing even though a budget is required by law b) continually spending much more than you have c) creating set-asides such as Social Security, Medicare and the federal side of Medicaid and then never actually setting the money required by law aside so that now besides our almost $14 TRillion national debt we also have almost $110 TRillion in UNfunded obligations d) Not honoring simple common-sense, for example the new "Pay-Go" law was a good idea. It said no new spending could occur without either the generation of a new tax or the cutting in costs from elsewhere in the federal budget to pay for the proposed new project. How often has Pay-Go been followed since it was created in February? NEVER! The rascals simply call everything an "emergency" and then forget about Pay-Go.

23. When it comes to progressive job creation, there seems to an "ivory tower" approach consistently in evidence. Let's talk about the Gulf oil spill again. Rabid environmentalism stopped much of the inland drilling and pumping and all the near shore drilling and pumping. The facts are that BP screwed up monumentally; governmental regulators -- whose responsibility it was to keep BP operating safely -- screwed up monumentally; and environmentalists who pushed for exactly the deep offshore drilling we now are faced with when we didn't really have the completely safe technology to do it are also deeply at fault. Another example: in 1972, worldwide deaths from malaria amounted to fewer than 50,000. However, since the U.N. and the United States outlawed DDT, fifty million people have died around the world due to pseudo-science claims that DDT was harmful to non-insect life never proved. The president's aim to create five million green-tech@@ jobs is likewise based upon the pseudo-science of global warming^^ and is presuming that "saying it's so makes it so." If President Grant had said that we were going to create 800,000 new electric jobs in 1870 . . . his saying it's possible is NOT equivalent in reality to it being possible. 800,000 American jobs in electricity didn't come to be until about 1922 over half a century later. How many real jobs would have been lost over those fifty years if Grant and his successors had followed such an ignorant path? What would have been the economic and overall history of the country? Promising the unachievable has grown into a virtually criminal political art.

Here, in a very brief essay, is much that people need to know about how economics actually works in modern life . . . .

http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/rdPncl1.html

Liberals and Progressives do not know nor appreciate that little essay, they believe that the creative problem-solving part of human nature is actually benefitted by big government. The sad pattern is that liberals and progressives do not have even the slightest understanding of economics and therefore proselytize a utopian picture totally out of contact with the demands and conditions of the REAL world. Survival and "thrival" in the Real world is based upon surplus goods, a.k.a. profits. Liberals and progressives have a real yen for criticizing profits and business at every turn. Not realizing that prosperity means surplus, and "obscene profits," Liberals condemn the very lifeblood of modern society. REAL jobs are created by four possible motivations:

a. survival problems

b. profit/surplus problems

c. combinations of a and b

d. innovation and entreprenuerial expression

Taking things back to "basics" two million years ago . . . virtually everything that was done by humanoids other than children's play and sex during pregnancy was a necessary "job" for the individual and group's survival. In particular, the need for nomad hunter-gatherers to find adequate shelter; protect themselves from large carnivorous animals; and most importantly to secure adequate food and water was often an hour-to-hour imperative. Their eonomic system was absolutely 100% communistic.

Shortly after the coming of CroMagnon man roughly 35,000 years ago, earlier patterns of nomadic hunting became culturally locked in and tied to technological innovations (like taming of the dog; making of spear-chuckers, bows and arrows, spears and hand tools, domestic tools, tents, clothing, sewing tools, water bladders, leather bags, and later even baskets) and for the first time ever . . . occasional surpluses were possible. The necessity of constant travel made it impossible to carry much in the way of surplus clothing, tools, weapons, etc. -- even heavy tents were a huge problem . . . but food and water surpluses were absolutely necessary for Cro-Magnon's. Virtually every culture gathered vine-dried fruits equivalent to raisins and learned to dry meat. A well-known example, during the late Cro-Magnon years, the American Indians' pemmican was one of the greatest such innovations: a fat-dense**, calorie-rich, nutritious, easily carried food surplus. Virtually every family had their own "spiced-up" pemmican recipes passed down from mother to daughter. Because each family was largely responsible for its own survival and creation of surpluses a cross between communism and light "capitalism" say 98% communistic. (We exaggerate some in calling any part of this system "capitalistic" because until the adaptation of money in many cultures roughly 7,000 years ago, very little "specialization of labor " beyond gender and age specialization which had been going on for almost two million years actually existed.) Again, we're talking 98% communistic or socialistic society.

When natural "Edens," such as in coastal situations in the Mediterranean and California and Egypt, existed greater surpluses were possible and less travelling was necessary. Soon rudimentary agriculture became possible and domestication of the horse, goat, sheep, cattle and semi-domestication of the cat (feral cats loved "amber waves of grain" and the mice, rats and other rodents that fed upon the crops) provided the possibility of "permanent villages" existing. And what exactly made this all possible? SURPLUS a.k.a. PROFIT. Specialized labor like carpentry, pottery, basket-weaving, farming, fishing, metalworking and even soldiering first appeared during this era in these Edens. No longer was it necessary for the full range of hunter-gatherer skills to be practiced by virtually every single member of the tribe. At first a strictly barter economy existed but soon money was created. After the initial idea of surplus (storing up some of the excess food against "rainy days" which operated over two million years to ensure mankind's survival and advancement) money was the greatest single innovation for mankind's survival and advancement of all. Money was, in effect, nothing less than "stored surplus work." While this might sound to most of us today like pretty much a 100% capitalistic society . . . reality was considerably different since forcible tax collection (of grain and goods and coin) by tyrannical rulers was pretty much the order of the day. Later as "nobility by direct bloodline from God" became a normal part of the ruling class's rationale for existence, various sorts of feudal-type arrangements became the norm in virtually every "civilized country" or duchy in the world with a trifling few short-lived Republics thrown in among all the ordinary despotic states and semi-benevolent monarchies.

The economic system known as capitalism was found almost purely among guild-craftsman and folks like independent black smiths and cottage industries like weaving particularly in England and until about 1750 that's the way it was. The "most capitalistic" country in the world with its merchants, craftsman, cottage industries and independent farmers was perhaps 40% capitalistic. The feudal system with all the British lords and ladies was still deeply tied into the overall economic picture. Then came James Watt and the Industrial Revolution. Although the Luddites (cottage weavers put out of work by the water and steam power looms and other textile innovations) rebelled, the benefits to all British society of cheap cloth was among the most shocking and positive things that had ever happened in all of history.

Without the expansion of nobility into the American colonies, rugged individualism prevailed and this nation quickly became the most capitalistic society the Earth has ever seen, perhaps 99.7% so in 1787. The last burst of capitalism released upon America occurred during the Reagan years 1981-1989 when 21 million jobs were created. However, because Republican Reagan was faced with Democratic control of the House and Senate and needed to compromise with Dems to pass his own pet projects . . . the National Debt skyrocketed.

The single-most Capitalistic period in American history was the Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge era sandwiched between progressive presidents Woodrow Wilson and Herbert Hoover. The "Unknown Depression" of 1921-22 was met steadfastly by Harding and Coolidge (after Harding's Death) by cutting taxes 50% and spending 49%. The Roaring Twenties that ensued was the single most transformational decade in history as the Unknown Depression ended in late 1922. Little known by most people is that Democratic progressive Franklin Delano Roosevelt ran constantly and was elected for promising he would return to the Harding-Coolidge tax-reduction and spending- reduction paradigm as he succeeded progressive Republican Hoover. He obviously lied and did the opposite and America suffered under a dozen-year Great Depression extended by his socialistic efforts while the rest of the world had a fairly short "little 'd' depression." Ultimately, the facts of economic life are this: as in so many other ways, when it comes to jobs and the economy: "that government is best which governs least."

Ya'all live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut

** should you ever find yourself in an extended survival situation, it isn't only getting enough calories and traditional nutrients that matters, you could actually get 3,500 calories a day and die malnourished if you can't supply the body's need for fat from the ultra-lean rabbits, fish and birds you're most likely to catch.

@@the Spanish green-tech economic debacle is clearly pertinent

^^ http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6936289.ece
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Rajjpuut's Folly: Progressive vs. Fiscal- Constitutional-Conservative

Posted by Bob VanDeHey on May 29, 2010 at 11:00pm


Patriotism: a High-Demand Commitment
Part III: Understanding the Progressive Opposition We Face
Let us now talk about the "enemy." We are wise not to dare consider him the "loyal opposition" since he refuses to play by the rules of the Constitution, nor the rules of truth and normally understood fair play . . . and yet he holds us to those three high standards at all times (employing our "scripture" to do their hellish work) and has the mainstream media virtually 95% committed to advancing his lies. We must, under these circumstances, conduct ourselves in the most circumspect and non-violent manner, like the superior human beings knowing a superior and more ultimately compassionate truth that we are. Every day, that policy has won, the TEA Party, for example, greater and greater respect. But enough about us . . . . What do progressives believe? What do they feel they need to pass on to help us less-enlightened Americans to understand and embrace the beneficial changes they’re wisely bringing us? How do we conservatives refute all the specious progressive nonsense that’s continually thrust upon us and ballyhooed in the mainstream media? The progressive argument is found in normal print below. The Conservative rebuttal is written in italic print.
America through progressive eyes:
This is a very flawed land and jingoistic land where hypocrites abound. Our national vision is a gross lie seen through a distorted mirror called American History learned by rote triviality and blended into a “melting-pot” consciousness known as American “exceptionalism.” Justifying our founders as “God-led” patriots we dismiss with little thought their genocide of the native tribes inhabiting the lands when we first arrived; the enslavement of Black Africans whom we tore away from their native shores; the outright theft of 2/3 of what was once Mexico away from its people; and the use of concentration camps to control vast numbers of German- and Italian-Americans in World War I and Japanese-Americans in World War II. These sins are each of them so great they can never be expiated. Calling our most monumental lie “Manifest Destiny” a charade for some of the cruelest actions ever seen on earth, may not make us popular, but these truths can NOT go unsaid.
America, the Big-Picture truth:
America, like all nations, has had and still has its failings. Evil men and women have always existed even upon our own shores. Good men and good women also are prone to error. The mistakes of the past, however, are in the past and immutable. Choosing to use them as permanent stains upon the people of the present is utter nonsense and foolhardy propagandistic ranting, nothing more, nothing less. Clearly, the wide library of progressive lies about America, Americans and the “American Way” tell us way more about the kind of malcontented people that become progressives and raise their children that way than they do about America’s weaknesses. The utterly worst chapters of American History show a not very compassionate and often cruel or at least careless thoughtlessness toward other cultures. But cultural clashes are not unknown elsewhere and seldom have been moderated into absolutely benign cultural mergers anywhere. Looked at in that light, America comes out flawed but not evil. That is realism, plain and simple. Understand your mistakes, learn from them and avoid them in the future. Nihilistic progressivism would have all Americans forever guilty and apologizing for our very breath. Rajjpuut did NOT enslave anyone. Rajjpuut did NOT put anyone in a concentration camp. Rajjpuut has never killed anyone. Rajjpuut refuses to be held eternal prisoner to the sins of the past. Rajjpuut recommends all clear thinking Americans adopt a similar line of thinking, the past is uncontrollable . . . work now on improving those things we can control, period.
Be fair and accurate, Progressives! And notice, that the examples given in World War I and World War II were brought about by progressive presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delando Roosevelt. Be fair and accurate, Progressives! Why not compare us to what you are espousing: totalitarianism (all collectivism -- and progressivism is utterly collectivistic, regardless of how they attempt to sugar coat it -- is based upon the Utopian ideas of Engles and Marx and owe much of their strength to labor and environmental movements like the Luddites in Great Britain in opposition to the Industrial Revolution) . . . all this is another sort of Clashing of Cultures and the prime collectivist states Communist USSR, Communist China and Nazi Germany have seen to the murder of 94 million civilians in the name of their ideologies with the Nazis only responsible for 13 million civilian deaths. Compared to what progressivism espouses, America looks darn good. What’s going on upon these shores is pretty wonderful in its own way. There’s a reason that the French gave us the Statue of Liberty. There’s a reason that ours is the land that hundreds of millions of people have dreamed of and tens of millions of peoples have uprooted themselves to come here legally. There’s a reason that millions of people cross into our country illegally while Berlin Walls and Iron Curtains couldn’t stop people from escaping collectivistic states. America has been for roughly 200+ years, the land of opportunity. America has things in its past to be ashamed of, America need have NO SHAME for the present. America is in a certain sense perfect, in a greater sense: perfecting.
The Military through progressive eyes:
America is an imperialistic and violent nation (look at that “National Anthem”) interested in virtual-colonization of the Third World. Our military serves the evil purposes of enslavement and oppression of other cultures. There can be no “just” American war and no heroic American fighters because we come into battle with the malevolent thought that our might makes us right always. In league with big business, the military—industrial complex (M-IC) seeks to control the minds, bodies and votes of all Americans as well as much of the rest of the worlds’ peoples and resources. America hides behind its ruthless military strength to browbeat other cultures and nations and their leaders into compliance with America’s desires. We have no real friends in the rest of the world, only a few toady and sycophantic nations that align with us. The existence of the American military-industrial complex (M-IC) allows unenlightenend Americans to believe that they are the greatest, freest and most generous peoples the planet has ever known . . . enlightenment,however, tells us that Americans (until properly educated in progressivism) are narrow-minded slaves to the M-IC who are selfishly plundering the rest of the planet and endangering us all with environmental Armageddon.
The American Military, the Big-Picture Truth:
Here the progressives missed their best chance to embarrass and demean the American military and didn’t . . . so in the spirit of full and open truth-seekers, let us remind them of Custer’s two raids on defenseless Indian camps populated mostly with women and children before his own ultimate demise; plus the Sand Creek Massacre; plus Wounded Knee; plus the U.S. Army’s role in bringing about the horrific death march known as the “Trail of Tears.” Hell, let’s throw in Kent State while we’re at it and Hiroshima and Nagasaki – America’s the only nation ever to drop a nuclear bomb on another nation, after all.
Armies and Navies, etc. are designed to FORCIBLY bring one’s enemies into line while protecting one’s own nation and its interests. Abuse of military power is evil, clearly and undeniably evil. Clearly and undeniably, some unenlightened and abusive use of the nation’s military power has occurred and far too often. Not to mention the almost always inexcusable collateral damage and friendly fire incidents created by either incompetence, ignorance, or accident. The two A-bombs mentioned above, by the way, ended up saving presumably three to four million Japanese lives and ¾ of a million American lives not to mention the wounded on both sides and the virtual destruction of all of Japanese infrastructure and culture.
All the incidents mentioned in the penultimate paragraph are facts of history and cannot be undone, but only learned from. The progressives make a repeated and consistent logical error in always allowing themselves the right to learn from their more than abundant past mistakes, but branding America’s past errors as utterly damning, ubiquitous and eternal. The progressive would brand America and the American military for all our mistakes forever – the mote in our eye -- while forever refusing to acknowledge the far more monumental shortcomings of progressivism and the military abuses of collectivist states – the huge post** in their own eye -- such as the USSR and Red China annihilating the freedom-loving opposition in places like Hungary and Tibet, etc., etc. ad nauseum and stealing the freedoms of their own people by the full-pressed weight of their military might and their military-like police enforcement techniques and philosophy.
In fact, the American military has been largely a force for good in the late and 21st Centuries. It was the American military that brought the utterly cruel and despotic Japanese empire to its end. Ask the Chinese and the Koreans about that. It was the American military that played the primary role in wiping out Nazi Germany with American military supplies also bolstering the causes of Stalin and Churchill against Hitler's forces mightily. It was striving to keep up with the American military which brought about the bankruptcy and eventual PEACEFUL capitulation highlighted by the surprisingly quick fall of the Berlin Wall; collapse of the Warsaw Pact; and the dissolution of the USSR itself. When natural calamaties and crises fall upon innocent civilians, it is more often than not, the American military on the front lines delivering and providing aid and comfort to the stricken. On balance, the American military is more deserving of praise than censure and when you’re talking about virtually unlimited power being used with a respect and restraint that is truly a magnificent truth.
Next time Part IV: the Constitution through Progressive Eyes
Ya'all live long, strong and ornery,
Rajjpuut
** For example, the progressives don't like to acknowledge that the lion's share of the present almost $14 TRillion national debt is of their making; that pay-go which they just passed is like "set-aside" which they always attached to their monumental public welfare schemes like social security, medicare and the federal side of medicaid and since passing pay-go earlier this year, they have refused to acknowledge and follow their own good law and find a way to pay for proposed new laws as pay-go requires. Most importantly, let us never talk about the fact that the three government interference set-aside boondoggles (also government spending boondoggles, thus GIBs and GSBs) named above are now obligated for $109 TRillion in required services . . . this is the progressive legacy which they totally ignore while piling scheme upon impossible scheme as if there will never be a day of fiscal-reckoning . . . in other words, progressivism is an enormous lie and a filthy ponzi scheme.
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Rajjpuut's Folly: American Voters Learn Too Little, Way Too Late about GIBs, GSBs

Posted by Bob VanDeHey on May 23, 2010 at 1:30pm
61% NOW Say “Government, STAY OUT!" of Housing Markets
The latest Rasmussen Reports poll says it all . . . ultimately, that infamous creature H.L. Mencken called “Boobus Americanus” gets exactly the sort of government it deserves. Clearly, the great unwashed masses called for and deserved Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and all the progressive Republicans and Democrats now poisoning our system and they got ‘em. When it comes to politics and government, ignorance is NOT bliss and for far too long the Boobus Americanus has willfully remained glued to their sitcoms and IRreality shows and ignorant of economics, politics, the Constitution and political history.
According to the latest Rasmussen poll, 61% of Americans say it is better for the economy when the government stays out of the housing market. That’s an eight-point jump since September and only 21% believe the economy is helped by the government using taxpayer money to subsidize new home buying as is currently the case through government programs begun last year. Much more importantly, 95% of Americans do NOT realize that the government has been guaranteeing mortgages to Americans who can NOT afford them for thirty-three years now – that is the government has been forcing banks and lending institutions to knowingly make bad loans since the passage of the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 (CRA ’77) under Jimmy Carter. The latest programs from Obama are scheduled to end over the next six months during the first fourteen months under Obama, these programs have made the housing market even worse then they were and currently foreclosures are higher than they ever have been.
Look at those statistics: 61% believe it’s best when government stays out of the housing market altogether. 21% think the government helps the housing market and 17% don’t know what effect government interference boondoggles (GIBs) like mortgage guarantees bring. Only abject ignorance can account for these statistics. In September, only 53% doubted GIBs make the housing market stronger. Americans willfully stay ignorant and then they’re shocked, absolutely shocked when things go wrong: that’s the sad history of Boobus Americanus.
A year ago President Obama announced a national mortgage assistance plan and Americans did NOT jump up in arms knowing that four different mortgage guarantee programs by the government, or more correctly by progressives in the government (those who believe we must “progress” beyond the Constitution) were the driving forces of the sub-prime lending crisis that brought us to our knees. Americans continue to show little short- or long-term confidence in the housing market, and belief that the family home is a wise investment has fallen to its lowest point ever in our history. 64% of adults say it is at least somewhat likely that government intervention in the housing market has made it possible for people to buy homes that they can’t afford. That figure includes 32% who say it is very likely (the only intelligent people in the survey?) while the most foolish 28% believe it is not very or not at all likely that the government programs encouraged people to buy “too much house.” What rock have they been living under for the last 33 years?
The New York Times in April said “the Obama administration’s $75 billion program to protect homeowners from foreclosure has been widely pronounced a disappointment, and some economists and real estate experts now contend it has done more harm than good (DO YOU THINK?). … Treasury officials appear to have concluded that growing numbers of delinquent borrowers simply lack enough income to afford their homes and must be eased out.”
The New York Times has been backing progressive causes and progressive politicians since John the Baptist first took swimming lessons and only now do they tell us that government interference in housing is a bad idea? What, pray, NYT do you think about government interference in every other non-government sphere of our lives?
Let’s first look at the sad and deplorable history of this GIB (government interference boondoggle) called ‘mortgage guaranteeing.’ Since World War II the United States’ already high rate of home ownership tends to vary from 61-65% depending upon the economy, the highest in the world. The CRA ’77 under Jimmy Carter, forced banks to make bad loans in the inner cities to potential buyers they would have rejected in a heartbeat for earnings or credit history. In ’92 Freddy Mac and Fanny Mae, the two semi-federal mortgage companies were forced under the CRA program to help guarantee such mortgages, Bush #1 was not crazy about the idea but an election was coming up and he would NOT veto.
Under Clinton, in ’95 and again in ’98 forced loan expansion continued within CRA continued. The ’98 expansion put the whole system on steroids and with the help of ACORN put us into our present debacle. ACORN with lawyers like Barack Obama (he worked for them in ’94- 96 at least) shaking down banks and other lenders forced terribly ill-advised loans to people with no rental home address; no ID; no job; horrific credit ratings; and even to tens of thousands of illegal aliens. Americans have shown no interest in this problem . . . and the mainstream media has only been too glad to keep them in ignorance about this monstrous progressive gutting of our financial stability. Let’s look at reality a bit more closely.
Since the USA had the world’s highest rate of home ownership (typically 64%) then the free market system must NOT have been broken. Congress’s “repair of the free market system was a huge attack on the landlord class. That is, an attack on the self-made man or woman . . . those most exemplifying the American Dream. Most Americans are too busy keeping up with the Joneses these days to truly understand the American Dream.
Most Americans foolishly believe that millionaires got their money from mummy and daddy and live flashy lives with mansions, glitzy cars and a jet-set lifestyle. This may be true for some Americans but it is NOT the way millionaires are made and it’s definitely untrue of most millionaires. The typical self-made millionaire family consists of two married teachers or a teacher married to someone with a profession. They are frugal and keep their debts ultra-low. They might try a bit of investing in the stock market, but most typically they buy a bit of rental property (houses, condos, townhouses and apartment buildings) and become landlords and landladies. These are the people that CRA ’77 and its expansions targeted: the very best in America. Almost surprisingly they wind up with assets of two or three million dollars . . . and what exactly is their crime? They provide low-income workers and transient workers (some of whom are not low income) with affordable housing. For this service they are vilified by the progressives who pass laws to make their financial existence perilous.
Back to Rasmussen’s polling: 67% of Americans believe if someone cannot afford to make increased mortgage payments, it is better for them to sell their home and find a less expensive one, a 10-point increase from December 2007. Just 23% now say it’s better for the government to assist them in making their payments. In December 2007, 54% placed the blame for the mortgage crisis on “individuals who borrowed more than they could afford” -- while this is true, in their ignorance Americans put no blame on ACORN; no blame on progressive politicians who passed four ever-increasing GIBs; no blame on shake-down artist lawyers like Barack Obama; no blame for the mainstream media that conveniently never chose to cover this story; and, most importantly of course, no blame for themselves for NOT staying informed and for NOT voting against progressive policies and politicians while always looking eagerly for the next free lunch (GIB or GSB**) from them. In other words Americans either still remain ignorant of the truth or they are willfully denying our reality and their role in creating it.
And one last bit of statistics from the Rasmussen Reports story: Four percent (4%) say they or someone in their family received government help in the past year to buy a home or meet mortgage payments. Ninety-three percent (93%) say they did not. Six percent (6%) of Democrats and five percent (5%) of voters not affiliated with either major party say they or someone in their family benefited from government housing help in the past year, compared to one percent (1%) of Republicans (you know them, the self-made millionaires). Rajjpuut would add that the single best way to help the poor is to ensure that you never become one of them and end up competing for their resources. The second best way to help the poor is to step out of the free market’s way (by cutting taxes Ronald Reagan created 21 million jobs in his eight years in office). The third best way is to cut government spending.
Here's something else most Americans don't know . . . . Our progressive president Woodrow Wilson left us with a depression as great as the one inherited by the much-ballyhood progressive Democrat FDR who inherited a mess from Progressive Republican president Herbert Hoover . . . but no one ever heard of that depression. Why?
President Warren G. Harding and his Vice-President Calvin Coolidge (after Harding died in office) cut BOTH taxes and spending by roughly 50% and the problem cleared up by mid 1922. within 19 months of them taking office. In contrast, Roosevelt who ran under pledges to act like Harding and Coolidge and cut both taxes and government spending acted instead like Barack Obama and proved himself a liar when he made those pledges, thus extending the Depression to almost a dozen years until the war bailed him out. Not to mention FDR’s stealing American’s gold by forced confiscation at $20.76 an ounce and than inflating the American currency to $35 an ounce . . . an almost 70% overnight inflation. Europe and the rest of the world had a Depression, American suffered a “Great Depression” thanks to Roosevelt’s GIBs and GSBs. Think about this Roosevelt created 40 brand new federal agencies with 40 new laws. BHO with his Obamacare – one law – created almost 390 new agencies. Enjoy your free lunch, Americans!
Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,
Rajjpuut
** Government Spending Boondoggles (GSBs) and Government Interference Boondoggles (GIBs) UNIFORMLY hurt the economy and the taxpayer but they are UNIFORMLY popular because no one has read or understood these simple, brief truths:
and, of course, the man who wrote “Dreams FROM My Father,” Barack Obama did not mention that his birth father’s dream included 100% taxation . . . and the media never investigated and/or told us either:
and you’ll note that politico.com like the NY Times above is a very liberal and even progressive source . . . so perhaps there's hope for America.
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