Politics
Why Liberalism Cannot Cure the American Economy
Liberal politicians in Washington, D.C. are very nervous about the upcoming elections. The American economy is stuck in the doldrums–if not headed for a double dip recession–and the people just might vent their wrath against those holding the reins of power.
In fact, President Obama’s team is so concerned that they’ve been meeting around the clock to try to come up with a solution. Should they enact another stimulus? Should they unleash a new set of tax credits or incentives? How should the government intervene to get the economy going?
We are told that the president will make a major speech this week about what they plan to do.
There’s just one problem. Liberal solutions to economic problems don’t work. They do not “reckon with reality,” so they are doomed to fail. Liberal politicians and their media cronies just don’t get it.
It’s freedom that we need. Not more government.
As Ronald Reagan once wisely stated: “Government is not the answer to our problems. Government is the problem.”
I recently read a book that opened my eyes to the blindness and bias that exists in both liberal political and media circles. Peter Goodman’s Past Due: The End of Easy Money and the Renewal of the American Economy, was given to me by a friend who wanted my opinion on it. Mr. Goodman is an economics writer for the New York Times who previously served for ten years as a Washington Post correspondent.
Reading books like Goodman’s is a healthy thing to do. It helps me understand what the other side is thinking and keeps me honest in my own beliefs. If you don’t read your philosophical opponents, then you must be unsure of your own principles or afraid to have them challenged. I am neither. As a pursuer of truth, I am open to find it wherever it may be found—sometimes in unusual places.
My friend thought I might be helped by a book from the bastion of liberal thought—the New York Times. I was sadly disappointed. Though Mr. Goodman is an engaging and thorough writer, I was amazed at the conclusions he drew from his analysis of where the American economy went wrong and what we must do to right it.
To be fair, Mr. Goodman rightly points out that many American institutions and individuals got hooked on easy money and credit over the past couple of decades. We spent beyond our means because we used the increasing equity in our homes as a cash cow to fund a debt-ridden lifestyle. He is right in this analysis. Americans got careless with debt during the Reagan-led boom that lasted from 1982 to 2007.
So far, so good.
Goodman weaves many personal stories into his narrative to prove his point. All of these people, from many walks of life, over spent, over borrowed and got shellacked when the mountain of debt became due. He discusses how the big banks and financial institutions did the same—apparently motivated by capitalism and greed. There are some elements of truth here as well.
But then the analysis reverts to the liberal bias. George Bush is consistently mocked throughout the book because he was a believer in unrestrained free enterprise. He also takes to task Bill Clinton’s reform of welfare, Robert Rubin’s and Larry Summer’s leadership during the Clinton years, de-regulation policies, and especially Alan Greenspan’s guidance of the Federal Reserve which was too laissez-faire.
The biggest culprit is what Goodman calls “faith based markets.” He says, “The intensity of the recession… was the direct result of a massive abdication of regulatory authority, one that enabled Wall Street and Madison Avenue to get rich by selling the dream of immediate wealth.” In other words—the government wasn’t involved enough. He calls this neglect “living in a fantasy world or Neverland.” He labels the free enterprise proponents as modern day Peter Pans.
Thus Mr. Goodman shares a fond affection for the Keynesian view of economics—that government must assume control of the economy and take the lead. He says, “The government must once again regulate the financial system to protect the economy from investment binges.” His desired direction is the government establishing “seed investments,” especially in bio-tech and renewable energy (he’s really big on wind and solar), and should finance health care through expanding Medicare and Medicaid and promote a “collective enterprise” between government and industry.
Let’s just say it as it is. Goodman is a socialist—or a fascist. They’re the same thing in his Liberal Neverland. He decries Wall Street and Main Street—but he a cheerleader for “State Street.” Goodman wants the government to control it all.
That’s why he is admiringly pro-Obama and his liberal economic ideas in the book. There is not one negative or cautionary word about the president’s policies. He lauds the fact that the president declared on inauguration day, “We must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin the re-making America.”
This re-making included the massive federal stimulus bill which Goodman applauded because it “took the edge off the worst economic fears and raised hopes that the suffering would diminish. It would generate needed paychecks. It would provide relief to those laid off. It would spare jobs that otherwise would have been lost by sending aid to cash-strapped states.”
Talk about Fantasyland. The so-called stimulus was a trillion dollar failure. And normal Americans don’t agree with Goodman’s enthusiasm over the government takeover of health care. They reject it by nearly a sixty to forty margin.
Goodman–and the Obama administration–believe that Big Goverment with its massive income re-distribution priorities are the best masters of the free enterprise system. What they fail to realize is this: It is government intervention that is the problem. Centralized governments always grossly misallocate currency and capital resources that are better guided by individual market decisions. The choices of millions of consumers provide much better checks and balances than a few bureaucrats do.
Here’s what Goodman amazingly missed in his research. He says that banks and other greedy financial institutions lent money they shouldn’t have. They were careless, reckless, and this is why the housing bubble inflated. There was too much money floating around with people abusing it via their home equity loans and re-financing schemes to get rich. He says there wasn’t enough regulation (government control) of the money supply.
But where did they get the money? Private companies cannot print money. Only governments can. It was short-sighted government regulation, through Richard Nixon, in 1971, that removed American finance from the gold standard, allowing trillions of dollars to be printed in the last thirty years that are backed by nothing. In 1971, gold was at $35 an ounce and the dollar was “pegged” to it for stability and strength.
In 2010, gold is over $1200 an ounce and the dollar remains incredibly weak. Bad government regulation has “inflated” our financial institutions with too many dollars. They simply used what they were unwisely given.
You can’t blame the Monopoly players when bank (the Government) is at fault for circulating all the funny money. If the government had left the money supply pegged to gold, there would have been no inflated home prices and no crash. The central planners messed up the system.
Goodman and his liberal friends are also disingenuous about other government agencies that heavily contributed to the financial meltdown. In Past Due, Goodman discussed the giant mortage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. He calls them “private companies” and places no blame at their feet for the collapse of the housing market.
But they are not private entities. They are government subsidiaries that tried to regulate people into homes they couldn’t afford, breaking all the normal laws of wise lending practices. Freddie and Fannie are in bed with the liberals and contribute heavily to their campaigns.
Here’s the bottom line: The US government bears the major responsibility for screwing up the American economy by grossly inflating the money supply and then lending it to unqualified buyers. If the government had stayed out of the markets, they would have been far more stable and self-correcting.
They didn’t–and set us on a course that looks an awful lot like sinking Europe, depressed Japan, and the disgraced and fallen Soviet Union.
Peter Goodman and his ilk now want the Federal Government to lead the American renewal with what? More controls! This is not only dumb–it is suicidal.
Past Due: The End of Easy Money and the Renewal of the American Economy is a propaganda book with a ludicrous conclusion. I think it should be re-titled: Past Due: The End of Liberal Dis-Information About the Virtues of Big Government.
America’s economic engine runs on the fuel of faith and freedom–characteristics that liberal thinkers neither understand nor promote.
Fortunately, the American people are seeing the light and will be voting for freedom in November, not for more government regulations. They know that liberalism cannot cure the economy because it puts its faith in the wrong thing–the Almighty State–instead of Almighty God who dwells in the hearts and minds of a self-governing people.
Another Failed Presidency
I’ve been wanting to write this article for months, but now it’s not necessary.
Geoffrey P. Hunt has really put his finger of the problem of the Obama presidency. In the following article he give great insight into why the Obama presidency, which began with such hope and promise, has become such an abysmal national failure.
Hunt’s conclusion is simple: Barack Obama is not one of us.
Apparently the American people are starting to agree. This week President Obama’s approval rating has dropped to an historic low.
The following article is loaded with insight on what makes an American leader. Hunt is correct that Barack Obama is failing because he is not a real American–a person whose life has genuinely intersected with God, faith, character, hard work, and the principles of liberty. Because he is not truly one of us in his personal story, he cannot lead us into a future filled with hope.
By-the-way: The main reason the secular press has gone out of its way to dismiss and discredit Sarah Palin is because they know that she is one of us. That’s what they’re afraid of.
Another by-the-way: Woodrow Wilson’s failed presidency and Barack Obama’s poor leadership have one major commonality. Both men are radical secular progressives. If you don’t know what that means, then start paying attention to Glenn Beck.
American is an exceptional nation precisely because we were built on the reality of “In God We Trust.” Our national narrative rests of that unique foundation. If, as president of the United States, you’re not a part of that “house,” you won’t make us feel at home and will not be able to guide us.
Let’s pray in 2010 and 2012 for a true rebirth exceptional American leadership.
Another Failed Presidency – Geoffrey P. Hunt, American Thinker
(http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/08/another_failed_presidency.html)
Barack Obama is on track to have the most spectacularly failed presidency since Woodrow Wilson.
In the modern era, we’ve seen several failed presidencies–led by Jimmy Carter and LBJ. Failed presidents have one strong common trait– they are repudiated, in the vernacular, spat out. Of course, LBJ wisely took the exit ramp early, avoiding a shove into oncoming traffic by his own party. Richard Nixon indeed resigned in disgrace, yet his reputation as a statesman has been partially restored by his triumphant overture to China.
George Bush Jr didn’t fail so much as he was perceived to have been too much of a patrician while being uncomfortable with his more conservative allies. Yet George Bush Sr is still perceived as a man of uncommon decency, loyal to the enduring American character of rugged self-determination, free markets, and generosity. George W will eventually be treated more kindly by historians as one whose potential was squashed by his own compromise of conservative principles, in some ways repeating the mistakes of his father, while ignoring many lessons in executive leadership he should have learned at Harvard Business School. Of course George W could never quite overcome being dogged from the outset by half of the nation convinced he was electorally illegitimate — thus aiding the resurgence of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party.
But, Barack Obama is failing. Failing big. Failing fast. And failing everywhere: foreign policy, domestic initiatives, and most importantly, in forging connections with the American people. The incomparable Dorothy Rabinowitz in the Wall Street Journal put her finger on it: He is failing because he has no understanding of the American people, and may indeed loathe them.
Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard says he is failing because he has lost control of his message, and is overexposed. Clarice Feldman of American Thinker produced a dispositive commentary showing that Obama is failing because fundamentally he is neither smart nor articulate; his intellectual dishonesty is conspicuous by its audacity and lack of shame.
But, there is something more seriously wrong: How could a new president riding in on a wave of unprecedented promise and goodwill have forfeited his tenure and become a lame duck in six months? His poll ratings are in free fall. In generic balloting, the Republicans have now seized a five point advantage. This truly is unbelievable. What’s going on?
No narrative. Obama doesn’t have a narrative. No, not a narrative about himself. He has a self-narrative, much of it fabricated, cleverly disguised or written by someone else. But this self-narrative is isolated and doesn’t connect with us. He doesn’t have an American narrative that draws upon the rest of us.
All successful presidents have a narrative about the American character that intersects with their own where they display a command of history and reveal an authenticity at the core of their personality that resonates in a positive endearing way with the majority of Americans. We admire those presidents whose narratives not only touch our own, but who seem stronger, wiser, and smarter than we are. Presidents we admire are aspirational peers, even those whose politics don’t align exactly with our own: Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, Harry Truman, Ike, Reagan.
But not this president. It’s not so much that he’s a phony, knows nothing about economics, is historically illiterate, and woefully small minded for the size of the task– all contributory of course. It’s that he’s not one of us. And whatever he is, his profile is fuzzy and devoid of content, like a cardboard cutout made from delaminated corrugated paper. Moreover, he doesn’t command our respect and is unable to appeal to our own common sense. His notions of right and wrong are repugnant and how things work just don’t add up. They are not existential. His descriptions of the world we live in don’t make sense and don’t correspond with our experience.
In the meantime, while we’ve been struggling to take a measurement of this man, he’s dissed just about every one of us–financiers, energy producers, banks, insurance executives, police officers, doctors, nurses, hospital administrators, post office workers, and anybody else who has a non-green job. Expect Obama to lament at his last press conference in 2012: “For those of you I offended, I apologize. For those of you who were not offended, you just didn’t give me enough time; if only I’d had a second term, I could have offended you too.”
Mercifully, the Founders at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 devised a useful remedy for such a desperate state–staggered terms for both houses of the legislature and the executive. An equally abominable Congress can get voted out next year. With a new Congress, there’s always hope of legislative gridlock until we vote for president again two short years after that.
Yes, small presidents do fail, Barack Obama among them.
The coyotes howl but the wagon train keeps rolling along.
[Editor’s note: The author is not the not the same person as Geoffrey P Hunt, who works at the Institute for Scientific Analysis as a senior research scientist.]
Why There is No Right to Health Care (and other Progressive Ideas)
Rights are based on God-created equality among human beings–nothing else. Because men are created equal in their basic worth by being made in the image of God–they are entitled by God to the basic rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (acquiring property through labor). Everyone’s life is equal in intrinsic value; Everyone’s freedom is equal in breadth and beauty; And everyone’s right to pursue happiness (through acquiring property and wealth) is equal in opportunity.
But that’s where equality and rights end. All other things related to human beings are unequal and thus unworthy of the status of a “right.”
This is obviously and expressly true in the area of health–which is why President is wrong to declare health care a right. It can never be a right because too many factors make its demands unequal. These factors include:
- Genetics – some of us are born with great genes that are less susceptible to certain diseases and others more prone to heart problems, cancer, and neurological disorders. Due to our genetic make-ups, there is no way to “equally” distribute the right of health care. Why should someone prone to horrific diseases be able to demand a million dollars in health care over a lifetime and another who is relatively healthy be required to contribute to the tab through taxation? This is a simple matter of fairness. The general public is not responsible for the genetic disposition of others.
- Lifestyle Choices –I shared last week how my Canadian friend, Graham, bilked the Canadian government-run health care system out of hundreds of thousands of dollars becaue of his choices to live most of his life as a chain smoker. He destroyed his lungs over decades by sucking in nicotine. As a result of his poor choices, why should another healthy or wiser choosing Canadian be stuck with his health bills? It is simply not fair to charge someone else for another person’s sins and mistakes. This comes back to basic justice and decency.
- Personal Circumstances – Human beings also encounter many circumstances in life that are neither genetic or a product of their choices. Life just happens–filled with joys and sorrows that are totally non-comparable. One person has a house that burns to the ground. Another loses a child in a terrible traffic accident. From a health perspective, one might have an accident that requires major medical attention, while another is blessed with easier circumstances. Again, because of the inequalities involved in normal life, it would be wrong to ask one person to foot the bill for another. It would be essentially unjust and impossible for a human government to balance.
There is another important reason why there is no right to health care. This one relates to our relationship with our Creator. He is the author and giver of life–and oftentimes uses our personal circumstances to teach us His ways, create humility and obedience in our hearts, and draw our eyes toward eternity. If we remove that important means of personal growth through a government right to health care, we remove one of the greatest incentives to personal growth and drawing close to our Maker.
For seven years–from 1994 to 2001–I suffered with a very painful burning sensation in my throat. It got progressively worse over time and led me to consult over ten doctors, have two rabbit-trail surgeries, and cry out to God with all my heart for relief of pain and understanding of His ways.
During this difficult period, God continually drew me to 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 where the Bible declares that “my grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” I learned during this test in my life to be humble, prayerful, trusting in God and not in myself. I learned to take a deeper measure of my weaknesses and bad attitudes and asked him to produce a greater wealth of his goodness within me.
It was a hard time because I speak for a living. Every time I used my vocal cords, they were painfully sore and the intense burning in my throat got worse and worse. I remember numerous times getting ready to speak to an audience, crying some tears and asking God for the grace to get through the message. He always helped me and I learned to trust him as never before.
Late in the seven year test, I sensed that my deliverance was at hand because of his work in my life. I began to pray fervently for his will to be done, and opened my Bible to a special promise he had given me many years before.
One day in 2001, my wife was talking to her best friend who asked a simple question: “Have the doctors ever checked out Ron’s teeth?” When I heard the question, a bell went off inside of me and I immediately scheduled an appointment. To my dentist’s shock and surprise, they discovered that an abscessed wisdom tooth had created a ping-pong-ball-sized noxious cyst in my jaw–which leaked its poison into my throat every day. I had surgery within days, the cyst was removed and my throat eventually returned to normal. I never returned to “normal.” My life had been changed through this health care test.
I’m glad I didn’t have a “right” to health care during that ordeal. There are many lessons I would not have learned, many character traits that would not have been fully developed. If I’d had a right to everything, I would have demanded that right and forgotten about God. That’s the way we human beings tend to work.
Not having an automatic right to health care is very beneficial from a personal development standpoint. Suffering draws us closer to God. We seek his will and his answers. If the government’s footing the bill, there’s no one to seek but them. They are usually not as helpful as the God of the universe.
Health care must remain a personal responsibility–not a government right. We are genetically different, we make different choices in life, we encounter different circumstances, and we are all involved in a different relationship to our Creator in which he desires to work for our good. If the government and other tax payers become our new fountain of health, then justice will be impeded and many character lessons will be lost.
This is also why all other “progressive rights” ring hollow. There is no such thing as a right to a job, to a certain level of pay, to a house or car, or any other societal desire–because of the unique differences between people. All of these blessings are privileges–not rights–to be gained by the prayers, hard work, and wise choices of the individual. God is involved in all of these life opportunities also–and wants us to look to him for provision and personal spiritual growth.
It is through our suffering and pain–and very different circumstances in life–that we learn to grow up and put our trust in God. Insurance policies, church affiliations, and other voluntary arrangements–and even government–can be helpful in the process–but never to be depended upon.
There is no right to health care. Creating that right would be creating a new god in America who would not serve us well.