What we learned in February
In early February, NWOU briefly watched the bankers testify before Congress. The hearing was designed to humiliate the big bankers, but more revealing was the lack of knowledge congressmen have about how the financial system works. The bankers are about 40 IQ points ahead of the congressmen. If Congress is going to regulate Wall Street predators, somebody is going to have to be elected to Congress who can match their wits. No one in Congress presently has that ability. Moreover, your average congressman appears to be as venal as your average banker. We can’t look to Congress for honest leadership in regulating a corrupt financial system if the congressmen are just as corrupt. Yet, Congress will not stop voting for water slides, airport expansion, and tattoo removal programs even as the republic hangs in the balance and popular opinion opposes their wasteful spending.
President Obama’s sense of urgency stampeded Congress into passing a hastily assembled patchwork of new spending programs that are not targeted to stimulating the economy at its moment of crisis. Obama’s show of bipartisanship was a laughable gesture. Republicans suddenly found a spine when the particulars of the stimulus bill revealed the Democrats’ true agenda, more socialism and huge, unpayable government deficits. The stimulus bill did nothing to help failing sectors of the economy, but it did crystallize political opposition.
President Obama emerged as a liar in his first couple of weeks of office. Fact Check has an article analyzing some of Obama’s lies.
Obama’s big whopper was claiming that Secretary Geithner had a plan to shore up failing banks. Geithner’s testimony before Congress showed that he had no plan. This disappointment caused a stock market selloff that hasn’t stopped yet. Obama has had six months to put together a plan to deal with the failing financial firms, and yet when the moment of truth came, he had nothing. This huge misstep has solidified opposition to the Democratic program as it is now clear that the Democrats are unprepared to deal with the financial crisis and are primarily committed to wasteful spending for favored constituents. Obama could have been a hero if he had addressed the financial crisis first, but the Democrats couldn’t wait to attack the economy with a full frontal assault of socialist proposals. This blunder was a huge favor to anti-New World Order conservatives.
The socialist proposals in the “stimulus” bill and the proposed annual budget further drove down stock prices in selected economic sectors. Student loan companies, insurance companies, healthcare companies, drug companies, energy companies, even alternative energy companies saw their capitalization shrink dramatically within a few days. The Democrats’ proposals to regulate entire sectors of the economy destroys the wealth of these sectors. This is particularly ominous at this time of crisis because wealth destruction is being carried out on such a grand scale around the world as access to credit shrinks, government bailouts issue new debt, and lower demand forces industries to lay off workers and cut profit forecasts. This blunder highlights the essential economic problem of socialism, that it produces nothing and destroys wealth. As the Democrats search for sources of funding for their huge deficit spending program, more of these sources of wealth are being destroyed by their own proposals. Recall that government-subsidized housing and loan programs started this economic mess. Socialism will destroy the economy, sector by sector, and thereby destroy the sources of tax revenue needed to fund socialism. This is socialism’s fatal flaw.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s weak public performance and absence from the public podium has quickly engendered a lack of confidence that cannot be repaired. Mike Whitney offers insightful research into Geithner’s true agenda at Counterpunch. Geithner’s plan for a Public-Private Investment Fund envisions private investment in bad assets currently held by major banks, with government guarantees against investment losses. This plan to recapitalize bad banks by shifting their assets to a pool underwritten by government guarantees is a clever way to saddle the taxpayers with financial responsibility for financial speculation by the leading capitalist criminals. To understand how this scam has worked before to loot the treasuries of several countries, see our DVD, The NAFTA Conspiracy. Public outrage is being further fueled by banker bonuses and lavish spending on corporate parties. Hedonistic excesses in the face of financial meltdown are making Obama look less like Lincoln and more like Nero.
Democratic constituencies may be pleased by Obama’s socialist proposals, but they won’t be pleased if they are able to understand how he is bailing out corrupt bankers at taxpayer expense. The Right is now mobilized to give Obama a fight. Street “tea parties” occurred last weekend. If the Left figures out that Obama is a monopoly capitalist as well as a socialist, their disappointment may undermine his standing in the polls. His presidency may become the fastest failed presidency in American history. This failure could only be a good thing. His twin policies of supporting corrupt capitalism and promoting more socialism could be the death knell for the American economy if he succeeds in passing these huge spending proposals through Congress.
The liberal press is having difficulty dealing with Obama’s lies, the prospect of unprecedented and unpayable government deficits, and the Republican mobilization around Rush Limbaugh’s attack on Obama’s policies. Obama’s performance in his first few weeks has sent a shudder of fear through the country as it became obvious that he is not equipped to deal with the financial crisis. Let’s trace this error to its source, the desire of the Democrats to nominate an inexperienced Senator for president because he was blackish and spoke nicely about meaningless abstractions. Now the illusory audacity of hope has been replaced by the audacity of socialist debt and the real prospect of America’s bankruptcy. The question of the moment is how best to capitalize on an unexpected shift in public opinion against the Democrats right at the moment they had seized total power and appeared unstoppable.
About The Author
The colors of your blog really go well with each other, did you design it Yourself?
We modified the colors from a theme at The Cloisters.