The Cluelessness is Absolutely Stunning

[sirs]

After President Barack Obama said, “The private sector is doing fine,” he later quickly regrouped. “The economy is not doing fine (emphasis added). That’s the reason I had the press conference.” But Obama said he was particularly concerned about losses in the public sector. The cluelessness is absolutely stunning. Obama is wrong about both the private and public sector.

Obama’s assessment of the economy reminds many of 2008 Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s characterization of the economy. In September 2008, the investment firm Lehman Brothers was collapsing. Wall Street was shaking as the yet-to-be-declared recession deepened, but McCain said: “I think, still, the fundamentals of our economy are strong. But these are very, very difficult times.”

The reaction to McCain was harsh. His opponent, then-Sen. Obama, pounced: “We just woke up to news of financial disaster, and this morning he said that the fundamentals of the economy are still strong? Sen. McCain, what economy are you talking about?”

The Washington Post said: “Sen. Barack Obama seized on McCain’s assessment of the health of the economy, blasting the Republican for being ‘disturbingly out of touch’ with the reality that everyday Americans face. ‘I just think he doesn’t know,’ Obama said in Grand Junction, Colo. ‘He doesn’t get what’s happening between the mountain in Sedona where he lives and the corridors of Washington where he works.’”

Let’s look at the facts.

In McCain’s case, unemployment at the time was 6.1 percent and rising. The economy was experiencing “negative growth.” But in Obama’s case, he correctly states we are in recovery. “The truth of the matter is,” said the president, “we have created 4.3 million jobs over the last 27 months.”

To paraphrase my grandfather, “Is Obama bragging or complaining?”

Last month, the economy produced a pathetic 69,000 jobs. The National Bureau of Economic Analysis revised last quarter’s gross domestic product growth downward to a paltry 1.9 percent.

Economist John Lott points out: “Thirty-six months into the recovery and the private sector hasn’t even made up half the jobs lost during the recession, let alone make up for the fact that there are about 7.6 million more working age people than when the recession started. What about the 4.2 million that were lost between when Obama became president and February 2010? The ‘growth’ just replaces what was lost during the first part of his administration. Let alone the 8.8 million private-sector jobs that were lost between when the recession started.”

Do the math.

It takes 150,000 new jobs per month just to keep pace with population growth, those coming into the market from high school and college. Obama’s 4.3 million jobs divided by 27 months comes to an average of about 159,000 jobs over that stretch. That is treading water, not even close to the number it takes to make a dent in the 8.2 percent unemployment.

What about the supposedly suffering public sector?

According to Investors.com: “Private-sector jobs are still down by 4.6 million, or 4 percent, from January 2008, when overall employment peaked. Meanwhile, government jobs are down just 407,000, or 1.8 percent. Federal employment actually is 225,000 jobs above its January 2008 level, an 11.4 percent increase. That’s right, up 11.4 percent. … The recession was boomtime for federal employment, especially after Obama took office. Federal jobs kept rising (excluding a temporary Census surge in early 2010) until March 2011 – more than three years after overall payrolls peaked.”

Economist Lott also says the federal public sector is holding up particularly well: “The only group of workers ‘doing just fine’ is federal government employees, where employment has increased by 4 percent since the start of the recession. In sharp contrast, both private-sector and state and local-government employment have fallen, with the private sector in the worst shape. Private-sector employment is down by 4 percent and state and local government down by half that – 2 percent. Between 2007 and 2010, annual wages also grew 40 percent faster for state and local-government workers than for those in the private sector.”

Our latest recession lasted 18 months, ending 36 months ago, in June 2009. Look at the recovery from the deep recession of the early ’80s. At this point during the recovery from that 16-month recession, which began in July 1981 and ended in November 1982, the economy had produced an 8.9 percent increase in civilian employment – almost 9 million jobs. Real GDP growth averaged over 5 percent in the first three years of the Reagan recovery, compared to an average of 2.4 percent three years into the Obama recovery.

Historically, the deeper the recession, the sharper the bounce-back.

The numbers in the early ’80s were grim: a peak 10.8 percent unemployment, 13.5 percent average inflation, prime interest rates at 20.5 percent. But driven by Reagan’s policies of lower taxes, slowing the rate of domestic spending and less regulation, the economy staged a ferocious comeback.

Reagan distrusted government and sought to restrain its growth.

Obama, the former community organizer, believes government creates jobs and that “social justice” empowers him to redistribute wealth – according to those he deems worthy.

 

[Xavier_Onassis]

Reagan distrusted government and sought to restrain its growth.

==============================================
Reagan had more of his appointees prosecuted than any previous president. He did not restran the growth of government at all.

Government is the problem when Republicans run the government.

[sirs]

Unable to tackle the crux of the report, It would figure that xo would try to take 1 element of it, skew it, then criticize it. 

One could ask who was convicted under Reagan. 

One could ask what horrible economic situation Reagan inheireted vs what Obama did, and compare the policies put in place by both to stem each's recession

One could ask where's his outrage at the current leaks out of this WH, that had him all enraged at what supposedly happened to Plame

But those would be relative side issues, to the his attempted deflective-strawman tactic.  Government is the problem when power-hungry folks, be it Democrat or Republican, white or black, man or woman, socialist or fascist, are running the government.  The current manifestion infesting the WH can't seem to be any more power hungry, without literally breaking the Constitution, at this point

[sirs]

Government is the problem when power-hungry folks, be it Democrat or Republican, white or black, man or woman, socialist or fascist, are running the government.  The current manifestion infesting the WH can't seem to be any more power hungry, without literally breaking the Constitution, at this point

Socialist or Fascist

It bothers me a little when conservatives call Barack Obama a "socialist." He certainly is an enemy of the free market, and wants politicians and bureaucrats to make the fundamental decisions about the economy. But that does not mean that he wants government ownership of the means of production, which has long been a standard definition of socialism.

What President Obama has been pushing for, and moving toward, is more insidious: government control of the economy, while leaving ownership in private hands. That way, politicians get to call the shots but, when their bright ideas lead to disaster, they can always blame those who own businesses in the private sector.

Politically, it is heads-I-win when things go right, and tails-you-lose when things go wrong. This is far preferable, from Obama's point of view, since it gives him a variety of scapegoats for all his failed policies, without having to use President Bush as a scapegoat all the time.

Government ownership of the means of production means that politicians also own the consequences of their policies, and have to face responsibility when those consequences are disastrous -- something that Barack Obama avoids like the plague.

Thus the Obama administration can arbitrarily force insurance companies to cover the children of their customers until the children are 26 years old. Obviously, this creates favorable publicity for President Obama. But if this and other government edicts cause insurance premiums to rise, then that is something that can be blamed on the "greed" of the insurance companies.

The same principle, or lack of principle, applies to many other privately owned businesses. It is a very successful political ploy that can be adapted to all sorts of situations.

One of the reasons why both pro-Obama and anti-Obama observers may be reluctant to see him as fascist is that both tend to accept the prevailing notion that fascism is on the political right, while it is obvious that Obama is on the political left.

Back in the 1920s, however, when fascism was a new political development, it was widely -- and correctly -- regarded as being on the political left. Jonah Goldberg's great book "Liberal Fascism" cites overwhelming evidence of the fascists' consistent pursuit of the goals of the left, and of the left's embrace of the fascists as one of their own during the 1920s.

Mussolini, the originator of fascism, was lionized by the left, both in Europe and in America, during the 1920s. Even Hitler, who adopted fascist ideas in the 1920s, was seen by some, including W.E.B. Du Bois, as a man of the left.

It was in the 1930s, when ugly internal and international actions by Hitler and Mussolini repelled the world, that the left distanced themselves from fascism and its Nazi offshoot -- and verbally transferred these totalitarian dictatorships to the right, saddling their opponents with these pariahs.

What socialism, fascism and other ideologies of the left have in common is an assumption that some very wise people -- like themselves -- need to take decisions out of the hands of lesser people, like the rest of us, and impose those decisions by government fiat.

(lemme repeat that....What socialism, fascism and other ideologies of the left have in common is an assumption that some very wise people -- like themselves -- need to take decisions out of the hands of lesser people, like the rest of us, and impose those decisions by government fiat)

The left's vision is not only a vision of the world, but also a vision of themselves, as superior beings pursuing superior ends. In the United States, however, this vision conflicts with a Constitution that begins, "We the People..."

(boy oh boy, doesn't this fit the template of so many that have ventured these saloon floors, over the years, prancing with their air of superiority, that they just know better than the rest of us....and likely why nearly all of them have moved on, when it was clear to them that they weren't fooling us)

That is why the left has for more than a century been trying to get the Constitution's limitations on government loosened or evaded by judges' new interpretations, based on notions of "a living Constitution" that will take decisions out of the hands of "We the People," and transfer those decisions to our betters.

The self-flattery of the vision of the left also gives its true believers a huge ego stake in that vision, which means that mere facts are unlikely to make them reconsider, regardless of what evidence piles up against the vision of the left, and regardless of its disastrous consequences.

Only our own awareness of the huge stakes involved can save us from the rampaging presumptions of our betters, whether they are called socialists or fascists. So long as we buy their heady rhetoric, we are selling our birthright of freedom.

[sirs]

Who's your daddy?
More worrisome than Nanny State meddling is some people's desire for a strong, dominating government to protect us from uncertainty. If that happens, life becomes more, not less, precarious.
By MARK LANDSBAUM

We all have fathers, or at the least had one. This writer's father passed away 15 years ago. We miss him.
There's a contemporary lie that we don't really need fathers. The lie is easily reveal-ed for the absurdity it is by casual obs-ervation. It is no secret that the most violent and impoverished subcultures in the U.S. are those where fathers are absent. A father's guiding hand and occasional discipline are necessary for children growing up.

Clearly, fathers are a good thing.  It is fitting that today we celebrate fatherhood.

What isn't good, and should be shunned, not celebrated, is the growing American tendency to seek and even to demand a Daddy long into adulthood. By "Daddy" we mean what that 1960s British pop group the Zombies alluded to: a daddy who is boastfully dominant.

The lyrics from their 1968 song "Time of the Season" go this way: "What's your name? Who's your Daddy? Is he rich like me?"

The term has been adopted into popular culture. Suffice it to say, it's used as a demeaning and derogatory reference of dominance and submission. Sadly, it is increasingly appropriate today, especially so in politics.
Many commentators lament the Nanny State, which presumes to nurture us to death as might an overprotective nanny. This is a danger and, unfortunately, also a political trend.

But the "Who's your Daddy" phenomenon is far more dangerous. It not only smothers us with parental dominance, it does so with an iron hand. It undergirds a tendency not just on the left end of the political spectrum, but across all political persuasions. It is the tendency to want a strong, dominating government, not so much to coddle us, but to protect us from life's uncertainties. The irony is, in enfeebling its wards the Daddy State makes life more precarious, not less so.

FDR infamously proclaimed that we not only have God-given unalienable rights to freedom, as the founders of our nation understood, but that he believed we also should have man-made rights to protect us from nearly everything, not the least of which is fear itself. That is the mind set behind "Who's your Daddy?"
The more of a Daddy State we become, not only do we retard maturation as a society, but the more we are enslaved.

"The more the federal government provides for people, the more it deprives them not only of their dignity, but of one of the most sacred rights, penned by Thomas Jefferson: the right to pursue happiness," according to David Weinberger of the Heritage Foundation.

Why is that?

"Because fulfilling happiness comes from earned success, not from unearned handouts," Weinberger explains.  The more the Daddy State does, the less we do for ourselves. You might call it perpetuating adolescence, if not infancy, depending on the degree of submission.

This retarding of cultural maturation is something like spoiling a child. We all have met the spoiled children who arrive at adulthood. They are the ones acculturated to expect Daddy, or a surrogate for him, to provide for them.

Their reliance outwardly appears to be an attitude of entitlement. But more accurately, it should be known for what it is: utter dependence.

If that weren't bad enough, the Daddy State doesn't just teach people to expect handouts, it also undermines their growth and consequently their ability to fend for themselves.

If ever a politician revealed his core beliefs it was President Barack Obama, who professed earlier this year that "this notion that we should have let the auto industry die, that we should pursue anti-worker policies in the hopes that unions like yours will buckle and unravel, that's part of that same old you-are-on-your-own philosophy that says we should just leave everybody to fend for themselves."

Perish the thought that people would fend for themselves, that individuals or companies or institutions should rise and fall based on their own abilities and competences. Not when the Daddy State is in control, Obama tells us.

Most people realize that spoiled children end up unhappy, even if they get everything they wanted. They know down deep they didn't earn it. They resemble sucklings, unable to fend for themselves.
So, too, do Daddy State dependents end up unhappy. Like sucklings they end up dependent in a crippling way. Government dominance, even when well-intentioned, undermines individuals' pursuit of happiness because it inevitably limits personal responsibility.

It becomes not only someone else's fault if they don't get what they want (increasingly, the government's fault). They also find themselves unable to get it on their own, crippled as they have become to fending for themselves. Never-weaned sucklings are forever dependent.

And the forever-dependent dare not rise up and rebel against Daddy. Not if they want to keep getting their allowances.

[Xavier_Onassis]

This something for nothing attitude all began with Jesus giving away FREE fish dinners and bread at the Sermon on the Mount. Then he cured the blind, the lame and the lepers without charging them a single mite.

He should have given a lesson from the Compleat Angler, because "if you teach a man to fish, you have fed him for a lifetime."

Now everyone expects free food and medical treatment.

[sirs]

I really have o clue as to what you're trying to infer.  Government is Jesus??  Whatever Jesus gave, he gave of himself.  He did not mandate anyone to do anything.  His "free" items were just that, miraculously provided for all those who attended.  It cost no one anything.  No one had to work for it, nor one was required to provide any service.  HIS CHOICE to cure people, not to mention those he chose, not to

How that translates to Now everyone expects free food and medical treatment. truely requires divine intervention

[Xavier_Onassis]

Just pointing out that concern for the sick and the masses began with Jesus, and yet stupid righties keep saying that everything must be EARNED.

There is no such thing as a free lunch, they say.

Then they worship the most famous provider of free lunches in history, precisely for providing free lunches.

[sirs]

Do you even grasp how absurd your "point" is, in trying to compare Jesus and his GIVING, to that of Government and their MANDATING??

Yes, Jesus provided "free lunches", that he miraculously provided (no one had to make anything or buy anything to make the "free lunches".  And no, righties aren't claiming that "everything must be earned".  That's such an idiotic claim to make, based on squat rhetoric or evidence

But I DO APPRECIATE your use of Jesus, as flawed as it may have been.  He was the personification of giving freely...of himself.  He encouraged everyone else to be just as selfless, but that it was THEIR CHOICE.  AT NO TIME, EVER DID HE PREACH THAT SOME 3RD PARTY ENTITY WOULD/SHOULD BE THE FACILITATOR OF EVERYTHING THEY OR HE BELEIVED TO BE PROPER CONDUCT

You're confusing free will with "free lunches", which isn't free at all, especially in this day and age

[Plane]

Just pointing out that concern for the sick and the masses began with Jesus, and yet stupid righties keep saying that everything must be EARNED.

There is no such thing as a free lunch, they say.

Then they worship the most famous provider of free lunches in history, precisely for providing free lunches.

No "rightie" will object to you giving as many lunches away as you might wish.
AS long as it is you providing them, as did Jesus , you are doing a great thing.

[sirs]

...and that its HIS CHOICE to provide them, not some 3rd party bureaucratic blob telling him to