My Beauty Best Teacher

Bizarro World escapee Barack Obama (currently President of the United States) has called for an end to end $4 billion in subsidies for small companies that produce oil and gas for consumers, saying “You can either stand up for the oil companies, or you can stand up for the American people."

This latest effort to raise the costs of doing business on oil and gas companies is in response to the soaring price of gasoline in the United States, a development that will choke off the feeble recovery this nation has experienced under Obama's leadership.

Despite extensive research, it is still unclear exactly what Obama would cut that adds up to '$4 billion in subsidies', but based on past proposals Obama would likely cut out tax breaks that oil and gas companies receive for buying more efficient refining and industrial equipment, for creating and keeping manufacturing jobs in America, for costs related to repairing wells for safety, for encouraging more environmentally-friendly oil extraction, and for searching out and discovering new sources of oil.

Even though Obama pretends to support all of the stuff that the tax breaks go for, he doesn't like oil companies for some reason, and so he is going to make it more expensive for oil companies to do business in the hopes to lowering the costs of gasoline at the pump. If this makes no sense to you, you just have to think like Barack Obama and remember that up is down, good is bad, successful is wrong, laziness is a virtue, higher costs to produce somehow make a product cheaper, and demonizing others is okay if you're doing it but wrong for others to do.

President Obama though does not demand an end to all subsidies- only for an end for subsidies for companies that he personally does not like. Obama practices crony capitalism, whereby companies that give him political support in the form of campaign contributions get large subsidies, and companies who give money to his opponents (like the Koch brothers) are demonized and attacked. In the game of political power, President Obama intends to win so that he and his family and supporters and friends can benefit financially. Oil and gas companies oppose him because they want to provide cheap energy for poor people and manufacturing while making profits that are then distributed to shareholders and investors and they see Obama's policies as running counter to these ideas, and for their opposition Obama attacks them. So-called 'green companies' on the other hand cough up money to him and so receive substantially greater subsidies.

To wit, from John Hinderaker at Powerlineblog:

As the graph shows, in terms of per unit production, solar and wind companies receive considerably more subsidies than oil and gas, making support for these 'green' industries considerably more expensive, and thus wasting valuable resources like time and money that could have been spent curing cancer or building flying cars. It is not efficient or resource-usage friendly to support solar and wind energy, and yet Obama does, because executives and employees who run and work for these companies provide him with considerable campaign finances, which he then uses to maintain power for himself and redirect greater sums of money to his picked friends in those industries.

In this coming election, the left-wing that has seized control of your parent's Democratic Party is going to try to make this election about how Romney is successful, about how Santorum has good moral values, about how conservatives want people to pay their own way in the world, or about how some people make money providing cheap and efficient energy. They are going to make these things into bad things, and then make you feel bad if you write that they are actually good things, and they are going to pressure companies and individuals to say what the political power wants them to say. You are going to have to ignore all of this, and instead vote against tyranny- you need to vote Republican in the coming election and send Barack Obama back to Bizarro World where he belongs.

Via RightWingNews I read this piece by Michelle Malkin called The Autoworkers Obama Left Behind that I think is important for you to remember in the face of the propaganda that the Obama administration is going to churn out:

The White House fairy tale about the Happily Ever After Auto Bailout is missing a crucial, bloody page. While President Obama bragged about “standing by American workers” at a rowdy United Auto Workers meeting Tuesday, he failed to acknowledge how the Chicago-style deal threw tens of thousands of nonunion autoworkers under the bus.

In a campaign pep rally/sermon billed as a “policy speech,” Obama nearly broke his arm patting himself on the back for placing his “bets” (read: our money) on the $85 billion federal auto industry rescue. “Three years later,” he crowed, “that bet is paying off for America.”...

...The bailout pain was not distributed equally. It was redistributed politically.

Bondholders standing up for their property and contractual rights got shortchanged and demonized personally by the president. Dealers and suppliers faced closures based on political connections and lobbying clout, rather than neutral efficiency evaluations. And as I first reported in September 2010, in the rush to nationalize the auto industry and avoid contested court termination proceedings, the White House auto team schemed with Big Labor bosses to preserve UAW members’ costly pension funds by shafting their nonunion counterparts.

These forgotten nonunion pensioners (who worked for the Delphi/GM auto parts company) lost all of their health and life insurance benefits. Hailing from the economically devastated Rust Belt — northeast Ohio, Michigan and neighboring states — the Delphi workers had devoted decades of their lives as secretaries, technicians, engineers and sales employees. Some have watched up to 70 percent of their pensions vanish. They’ve banded together to seek justice in court and on Capitol Hill under the banner of the Delphi Salaried Retiree Association.

Through two costly years of litigation and investigation, the Delphi workers have exposed how the stacked White House Auto Task Force schemed with union bosses to “cherry pick” (one Obama official’s own words) which financial obligations the new Government Motors company would assume and which they would abandon based on their political expedience. Obama’s own former auto czar Steve Rattner admitted in his recent memoir that “attacking the union’s sacred cow” could “jeopardize” the auto bailout deal....

...As ebullient UAW officials hooted and hollered on Tuesday, Obama smugly attacked Republicans for “anti-worker policies” and their “same old you’re-on-your-own philosophy.” The Delphi workers know better: One union’s government-subsidized, government-manipulated “success story” is the rest of the workforce’s nightmare.

In Michigan, I daily hear the meme that "Obama saved the auto industry," and it bothers me, because in spite of so many factually wrong aspects of that statement people still believe it and are going to vote on it in November. The truth matters.

It matters that the TARP program was sold to the public and passed by Congress to save our banking industry, and then was turned into a slush fund to bail out politically favored industries and businesses. George W. Bush proposed saving GM and Chrysler, and I didn't agree with it then- there were two many questions as to why those companies were picked to be saved by taxpayer cash, why smaller companies didn't receive bailouts of their own, and the effect that bailing out a few companies would have on the rest of the larger un-bailed out economy. Still, Bush's program was small and would follow established laws and standards for bankruptcy, so it was bad, but not corrupt.

It matters that President Obama then took Bush's program and expanded it and turned it from a 'bailout to save the auto industries' into a 'government takes over GM and gives half of it to the union and gives Chrysler a lot of cash to get bought by an Italian company.' And rather than simply giving the money out as a loan with conditions, like Bush was going to do, Obama and his officials instead made far more daily decisions and played political games with the closing of dealerships and who got pensions- they played political games at a time when our nation was facing a deep crisis. That was gangster capitalism at its finest.

It matters that General Motors Corporation then went bankrupt, taking down thousands of properties and ruining whole communities, while dealerships were shuttered and thousands lost their jobs. This was 'you're-on-your-own' philosophy at work, only now instead of it being free people making free decisions on their own, it was Obama and his officials who decided who would be 'on-their-own' and who would get government help and support. Even today, the company that the government had the most contact with and control over- General Motors- lags its competitors who had less of the stink of government on them and less Obama influence. That matters.

In this coming election, it is going to be hard work to correct those who spin the lie that "Obama saved the auto industry", but we need to, because the truth is out there.

Let's not forget the big picture during this primary season- defeating President Obama's attempt to hold on to political power. This is not a partisan issue- I don't suggest that Obama needs to be defeated merely because he is a Democrat or a liberal or a progressive or whatever- but rather this is an issue about putting someone in the White House who is better at getting out of my way.

I'm great a working hard, creating wealth, making my own decisions in my life, living with my own mistakes, and producing goods and services for our great nation- and so are you. All you require to be prosperous, happy, and free is a government which protects your life through national defense and police services and the like, a government which protects your liberty and freedom by making sure that enemies without and within do not gain the ability to order you around, and a government which protects your happiness by making sure that the property you do earn you keep. You are all great Americans.

And yet, President Obama does not think that you are great Americans- he thinks that you make bad decisions, that you don't understand how a baby could ruin your life, and that you are not creating the right sort of property or spending your property in the right way. And this dangerous man with these dangerous attitudes has become President of the United States of America and is now using the power of that executive office to take away your liberty and freedom and property and make your life a little less full.

You've felt it, just like I have, over the years and getting worse over the last three- that feeling like people don't matter any more, like peoples lives are inconsequential, and that feeling that our world is a little less alive. It is not surprising that you've felt this way- as government has gotten bigger and more powerful and more in control with more aspects of your lives this impersonal and vast institution has dehumanized us and treated us as numbers and taken away from our life, liberty, and property.

President Barack Obama supports this dehumanizing and confiscating and controlling philosophy because he does not think that you are all great Americans.

Jay Cost on Saturday touched on these ideas in his blog post, where he spoke about just exactly what sort of person Obama was, what his vision of the world was, and why opposing him rises beyond simply a partisan or jobs or improving economy thing- it is a real battle of vision for the future for America- one in which the individual is great and free and prosperous, or another one in which the individual is a slave to the state and controlled by the state and prosperous only as much as the state lets them be.

Here is part of Jay Cost's blog post, from the Weekly Standard, called What's So Bad About Obama?

...Obama is not “radical,” at least not in the way we usually define the concept. But that actually points to the big the problem with this president and his worldview. The progressive ideology dating back to the turn of the last century, and in which Obama is comfortably situated, was never really about overturning the established order, but rather in co-opting it...

... the hallmarks of the First New Deal – were all about grand bargains between government, labor, farmers, and capital owners. The point was to draw all classes to the bargaining table, with the meeting chaired by the progressives, naturally. So it goes for modern-day progressivism. Both Clintoncare and Obamacare did not try to implement “socialized medicine,” but rather strike a grand bargain that would encompass all of the “stakeholders” to manage the nation’s health care...

...Obama has not set out to destroy capitalism. He is no socialist in the traditional sense of the word. He is not interested in controlling the means of production, as Marx put it. He’s happy to let commerce and industry remain in private hands, but that does not mean he's a free market advocate in any politically relevant sense of the phrase. He wants the free market to do its thing, so long as the government can socialize an ever-greater amount of the profit, and also take an intimate role in managing the private sector to “socially beneficial” ends....

...The principal reason for this opposition is that there has always been more than a whiff of anti-republicanism to the progressive agenda. Just consider the name "progressive," which implies a social, epistemological, or moral vanguard -- hardly the hallmark of true republicanism. And what one person views as “socially beneficial," another may rightfully call political patronage. For instance, the New Deal was full of payoffs – small and large – to Democratic constituencies....

...And so, the Democrats’ grand dreams of a “Fair Deal” always stink of unfairness to conservatives in the republican tradition... And Barack Obama, the president who promised to bring change to Washington, has been a very diligent patron to his party's extensive list of clients. On item after item, the topline claim to benefit the national interest is regularly belied by the particularism of the fine print. Klein mentions three items in particular in his column – the auto bailout, the financial reform bill, and the health care bill – that were all justified on purely nationalistic grounds, but peel off the top layer and the stench of clientelism will overwhelm you. To this list I would add the stimulus bill, the jobs bill that Obama proposed in the fall, and the cap-and-trade bill. Liberals look upon them all as fulfilling a great national purpose, but republicans (small "r") see massive payoffs to core Democratic groups.

If you want to understand the seething anger on the conservative side of the aisle, this is what you need to appreciate: It’s not just that Obama is a big government guy in the progressive tradition, which conservatives have opposed for more than a century. It’s also that he’s a client guy, meaning that his idea of big government inevitably has special payoffs hidden in it somewhere. And more than even this, he's a boundless client guy in what should be an age of restraint. Payoffs to party clients are one thing when the economy is growing at a four percent rate per year; that is a situation where the times are so prosperous that government patrons are really just drawing upon the national surplus to satisfy their partisans. But when the economy is growing at less than two percent per year, barely enough to keep up with population growth, paying off party clients is actually like robbing from Peter to pay Paul. And while Obama and congressional Democrats have put off that bill -- in the form of our trillion-plus deficit -- conservatives are not fools. They know they'll be asked to pay up sooner or later, and with a stagnant economy that means less money in their pockets, in part because the president wants to hold together his voting coalition.

That's what's so bad about Obama.

Let's get past all of our past labels- Republicans and Democrats, Romney vs Newt, establishment vs anti-establishment, Tea Party vs Occupier, right vs left, conservative vs liberal- and realize just exactly what the battle is about today: republicanism vs dictatorship. This 2012 is about returning power back to the people of our nation by empowering them as individuals to make lives, be free, and earn property. Obama opposes that desire, and that is what is so bad about him and why he must be defeated in 2012 and his vision of government rejected with extreme manliness.

Jay Cost is the author of Spoiled Rotten: How the Politics of Patronage Corrupted the Once Noble Democratic Party and Now Threatens the American Republic.

Via Big Hollywood, I saw a really great post called The Top 10 Conservative Lessons of ‘Rocky IV’. It's funny, but also really gets to the heart of what it means to be a conservative. Check out the whole thing, but here are my favorite parts of the post:

To be fair, “Rocky IV” is not an overly political film, nor was it intended to be. But it nonetheless encapsulates several key conservative points, so much so that it was, and still is, slammed by leftist critics as right-wing propaganda. Behold, the top 10 conservative lessons of “Rocky IV”:

1) Communism… (let me be succinct and find the right word here…) sucks.... It allows no hint of individualism. Not only is Drago forbidden from speaking and behaves as a robot but, in a moment of raw honesty during the final fight, fed up with the commands of his superiors, he finally breaks free emotionally, looks up at the Politburo in attendance, and shouts: “I fight for me! For ME!!!” (which, based on my repeated viewings, I can tell you sounds like “Ya-te-beeah!” in Russian, without evening cueing the DVD)...

...4) Patriotism. Three words: APOLLO ’effing CREED. One of cinematic history’s greatest characters, period. Apollo’s unbridled enthusiasm for his country never gets old, no matter how many times I watch this masterpiece, and it’s particularly touching that the fiercely patriotic, no-apologies-for-American-exceptionalism-found-here / “if you’re looking for someone to put this country down, look elsewhere” character … is a black male. What’s not to love? He-llo, the man is wearing an Abe-Lincoln-style red-white-and-blue hat and matching boxing trunks. Liberals recoil in horror. And James Brown’s “Living in America”? Goosebumps. Best of all, we get to watch the Godfather of Soul himself (who, incidentally, was an outspoken conservative!) perform it, with American flags waving all around....

...10) If you apply yourself and work hard, success is attainable: i.e., the very essence of capitalism. Rocky shows us that, even with the odds stacked against you, a person can succeed. Duke’s pep-talk to Rocky when they arrive in Russia: “I know you’re gonna have to do almost everything alone. . . . Now you’re gonna have to go through hell, worse than any nightmare that you ever dreamed. But in the end, I know you’ll be the one standing.” (a lesson the ‘gimme, gimme’ entitlement-crowd laying about at an Occupy rally would do well to learn… )

So there you have it – “Rocky IV”, the greatest unintentionally-conservative film ever made and, not coincidentally, a cultural masterpiece....

Oh yeah, my cousin loves Rocky, so this one was for you!

One news story that slipped beneath the radar last year was the fact that General Motors Corporation died last year, after 103 years of building quality automobiles. For most of the last century, General Motors Corporation was the world's largest corporation, but at the end of its life, government authorities circumvented the usual bankruptcy process and broke off 'old GM' from 'new GM'.  'New GM', or General Motors Company, was taken over by the government and the unions and given $50 billion dollars, while 'old GM' was put into bankruptcy and the million plus investors who had given their hard earned money to the company lost everything. 'Old GM' spent its final years shutting down dealerships, divesting itself of properties, and attempting to salvage whatever it could from its assets, but with its final death this December it will leave many bills forever unpaid and many properties languishing in weeds and ruin.

The truth of the matter is that the auto bailout, which is celebrated by many in the United States as a success, was anything but- the bailout orchestrated by Congress and the President ruined investors, shook the faith in many more about the future of true capitalism, ruined all those who were still owed money by GM, ruined the communities that now have the abandoned factories and dealerships and buildings in them, and left a mass of wreckage behind. Many bondholders, who took their life savings and invested it in General Motors, lost everything, even though they should have been the first to receive payment in the event of a bankruptcy.

General Motors Company may have survived, and with it thousands of jobs and the ability to make cars in the United States, but the deal it made- accepting taxpayer money and union control and government support- was the kind of deal typical to tyrannies and corporatist states, not a nation built on individual responsibility, freedom to make mistakes, and property protection through long-established bankruptcy laws.

And so 2011 draws to a close, with the death of what used to be America's largest company, and the continued faltering of the American economy, and soon, if drastic changes are not made, America itself. One can only hope that in 2012 the politicians who did this to our country- President Obama, Democrats in Congress, and big-government RINO Republicans in Congress- will be held accountable and thrown out on the streets and will be ruined, to join those companies and individuals who they ruined through their bad policy decisions over the past several years.

RIP General Motors Corporation, and RIP American capitalism.

A couple weeks ago I read an interesting article in the Telegraph- in it, longtime journalist Janet Daley suggests that the best thing that the British government can do to improve the economy and make people more wealthy and happy and free is to work really hard and be very productive in DOING LESS. The truth of the matter is that politicians have to have real guts and strength to simply say 'no, I will not spend taxpayer money trying to control people and the market,' but that may be exactly the kind of strength and guts we need today- politicians who promise to do more of less. From her article A daring idea to fix the economy: try doing less:

...the myth of government activism – the idea that intervention by the state is the answer to every economic and social problem – had been definitively routed. Apparently not: Mr Osborne and, we must assume, his boss still seem to believe that any unacceptable national situation must require direct action from them.

Or maybe they don’t believe that at all. Perhaps they just lack the political courage to admit that, in our present crisis, the best thing that the Government can do is to get out of the business of running (or subsidising, or initiating, or incentivising) things altogether – not just in the interests of saving money, but because the effects of such interference are counter-productive. What the economy is suffering from is not an insufficiency of overweening, fussy, bureaucratic initiatives that inevitably unleash an avalanche of unintended consequences, but a lack of cash in the hands of people who might spend it in ways that would actually create wealth and stimulate (in the proper sense of the word) economic growth.

If ever there was a time for radical proposals by a governing party, this is it. Rather than the imitative, mealy-mouthed shuffling of dollops of money from one departmental scheme to another, in what will inevitably look like panic in the face of rising youth unemployment and disappointing growth figures, what we need is a display of real insight and nerve...

...There is an urgent need now to rethink the whole relationship between government and populace while there is still the possibility of discussion. In Britain, Europe and America, the questions are remarkably similar. Can a free-market economy support an infinitely growing state? We will have to choose, quite soon, between liberty and the “security” of a society in which government controls the levers of economic life. Washington politicians are getting a terrible drubbing for failing to resolve their implacable differences over the size of the state (to the extent that they are unable to agree a federal budget). The US national debate may seem rough and ready to European ears – but at least they are engaging in the real argument.

She is right- the argument has been joined, and today via memeorandum I read in the Wall Street Journal an article that echo's the very ideas of Ms. Daley. From former Florida Governor Jeb Bush's article Capitalism and the Right to Rise:

...Increasingly, we have let our elected officials abridge our own economic freedoms through the annual passage of thousands of laws and their associated regulations. We see human tragedy and we demand a regulation to prevent it. We see a criminal fraud and we demand more laws. We see an industry dying and we demand it be saved. Each time, we demand "Do something . . . anything."

As Florida's governor for eight years, I was asked to "do something" almost every day. Many times I resisted through vetoes but many times I succumbed. And I wasn't alone. Mayors, county chairs, governors and presidents never think their laws will harm the free market. But cumulatively, they do, and we have now imperiled the right to rise....

....We either can go down the road we are on, a road where the individual is allowed to succeed only so much before being punished with ruinous taxation, where commerce ignores government action at its own peril, and where the state decides how a massive share of the economy's resources should be spent.

Or we can return to the road we once knew and which has served us well: a road where individuals acting freely and with little restraint are able to pursue fortune and prosperity as they see fit, a road where the government's role is not to shape the marketplace but to help prepare its citizens to prosper from it.

In short, we must choose between the straight line promised by the statists and the jagged line of economic freedom. The straight line of gradual and controlled growth is what the statists promise but can never deliver. The jagged line offers no guarantees but has a powerful record of delivering the most prosperity and the most opportunity to the most people. We cannot possibly know in advance what freedom promises for 312 million individuals. But unless we are willing to explore the jagged line of freedom, we will be stuck with the straight line. And the straight line, it turns out, is a flat line.

What Governor Bush is talking about is the same kind of thing that I personally observed during my time as a policy adviser in the state's capital. I remember distinctly one time when a young Republican 'conservative' staffer came in to work one day, upset that the car that she had recently bought turned out to have been a bad purchase. She set about writing a law that would force the state to regulate and control all sellers of automobiles in the state and then tried to convince legislators to sponsor this piece of legislation- she wanted the state to immediately do something, to step in and spend lots of money and time and effort controlling thousands of people's individual decisions just to protect several people from their own stupidity. She proposal was met with great hostility towards me, and I countered her proposal by suggesting that rather than the state doing something about used car dealers, it instead loosen regulations and fees and taxes on all car dealers, making the market more free, so that more fools like her could be separated from their money, as the hand of God in its infinite wisdom is wont to do. I wasn't joking though.

The real courage and intelligent thing to do to create a more vibrant, free market by cutting back government regulations and fees and enabling people to be people, in all their glorious faults and warts, because only by doing so can we also unleash the amazing potential for great and good things that humans contain in them. The safe, stately downward path of state control is not the path for me and is not the path that successful, free, and prosperous people- no, we choose the jagged and uneven and unpredictable path that is the path of less government regulation, taxes, fees, and supervision- that is the only true path for better protection and encouragement of life, liberty, and property.

A a recent article that Charles Moore wrote, I think he put his finger on exactly what is going on today- the success and advance of the twin threats of fear and doubt. Moore, who is a British journalist and former editor of The Daily Telegraph, in an article about Margaret Thatcher, wrote that after the long boom and success of capitalism and free market economics that "the worm of doubt entered the system":

You borrowed all the money needed for the price of a house. This made you, in your mind, though not in full fact, an owner. Because the value of the house was rising, it also made you, again in your mind, richer. The bank, which actually owned the house, found clever ways of mixing and selling on the loans it had granted so that it, too, felt richer. Governments, happy at rising revenues, thought it was their business to make sure that when the symptoms of high risk began to present themselves, they were suppressed.... (then) the roof fell in... (and now) when people now hear words like globalization or capitalism... they feel slightly sick.

Free market economics and capitalism did not lead our nation to failure- rather, during its wild success at making millions around the world more prosperous over the past centuries, communism and socialism and fascism latched on to it, sucking from its prosperity to feed its sick aims like parasites, and over time, many smart people began to become confused and unable to see the parasites from the concepts that they latched on.

Where free markets and capitalism created wealth and encouraged personal responsibility, governments and elites put in place rules and regulations which weakened the foundations of the system, subsidized risky behavior such as sub-prime mortgages and leveraging investments, and gave out handouts to favored industries and distorted the market by doing so. When banks, businesses, and corporations operated in a free market of capitalism, they could succeed or fail based on their own efforts and innovation; but in the new markets, which were no longer capitalistic or free, government subsidies and spending and lobbying and regulation and rules determined whether or not a business, corporation, or bank was successful or failed. And although this was no longer capitalism or free markets, but rather markets once free now twisted to the aims of elites and socialists and communists and fascists, many smart people became critical of the markets or capitalism because of the failures of the government bureaucrats who were twisting and corrupting the system.

And then the parasites of leftism began to weaken and kill the free market and capitalism, and the people cried out 'capitalism and free markets are failing us'- when it wasn't the free markets and capitalism that failed, but rather the people who failed the system.

They were led to this failure by fear and doubt- they did not believe in the hand of the God and the freedom of individuals and life, liberty, and the protection of private property.

The people (or The People, as leftists call them) feared that although they were becoming prosperous and their lives were rapidly improving, they were somehow falling behind others who were advancing more rapidly. Rather than looking at why they were successful in the free market capitalism- because of their hard work, innovation, and yes, luck- they instead demanded government policies to hold back others and help out themselves, corrupting the very system that had brought them so far. They doubted that if people were free and made free decisions, they would make 'the right decisions'- that is, the decisions that they would make if they controlled the other people and had power over them (their definition of 'right decisions').

Rather than just letting go and trusting that the unseen hand of God, trusting to the thousands and millions of individual decisions, and working to ensure that private property rights are strengthened and respected, they doubted that this giant experiment of capitalism and a free market would work, and feared that they would somehow fall behind others in material wealth if they didn't vote for and support people who promised to corrupt the system and abuse the system and circumvent the system. Many people trusted and believed in the power of men to control other men and redistribute property to other men, and in so doing rejected free markets and capitalism.

Fear and doubt came to the people's mind every time there was a recession, or even during periods when great wealth was created but wasn't immediately distributed evenly. The people reacted to the Great Depression by doubting that the free market would correct (as it had done in the 1920's and dozens of times before in the 1800's) and feared that he return to prosperity wouldn't come fast enough- and so they worked to destroy the system, corrupt the system, and make the market less free- and the results were a slight recession during into a decade long destruction of wealth.

And today, government policies and regulations and taxes and laws which corrupted the free market and corroded private property rights have let the worm of doubt creep once more into the people's minds, and in their fear that maybe they won't get to loot the dying Republic of its wealth they vote for Democrats who promise to manage the downfall and distribute the ever-decreasing wealth in the system to their supporters and voters and friends.

To return to success and advance again as a nation in wealth and happiness, we must reject doubt of the free market system and capitalism and trust the people- we need to trust and believe again that the thousands of decisions of free people will create more wealth and make more people happy, and reject those who suggest that having a smaller number of elites make those decisions for us is better. We need to let go of our fear that if we don't control the market and the system that you'll lose out, and instead work hard, innovate, save your money, and invest wisely.

UPDATE 12/7/11: President Obama delivered a major speech today on the economy, in which he expressed his doubt that the capitalist system could continue to provide wealth and prosperity for many and work to make society more equal, and from this place of fear he instead wants to trust himself and his fellow men to run a better system that will somehow do a better job of creating wealth and distributing it than having free people make free decisions.

Via memeorandum, in his Remarks by the President on the Economy in Osawatomie, Kansas, we read the following fear and doubt from US President Barack Obama, one-term Democrat. These are selections from the speech- (you can read the whole thing yourself here if you want):

My grandparents served during World War II. He was a soldier in Patton’s Army; she was a worker on a bomber assembly line. And together, they shared the optimism of a nation that triumphed over the Great Depression and over fascism. They believed in an America where hard work paid off, and responsibility was rewarded, and anyone could make it if they tried -- no matter who you were, no matter where you came from, no matter how you started out.

And these values gave rise to the largest middle class and the strongest economy that the world has ever known. It was here in America that the most productive workers, the most innovative companies turned out the best products on Earth. And you know what? Every American shared in that pride and in that success -- from those in the executive suites to those in middle management to those on the factory floor.

In this passage, Obama communicates to us that his parents believed in capitalism and free markets and personal responsibility and liberty and protection of property. And furthermore, Obama knows that this system worked. But yet, he has this nagging doubt and fear...

But for most Americans, the basic bargain that made this country great has eroded. Long before the recession hit, hard work stopped paying off for too many people. Fewer and fewer of the folks who contributed to the success of our economy actually benefited from that success. Those at the very top grew wealthier from their incomes and their investments -- wealthier than ever before. But everybody else struggled with costs that were growing and paychecks that weren’t -- and too many families found themselves racking up more and more debt just to keep up.

He doesn't BELIEVE in capitalism. He has no faith in people, freedom, liberty, and rights. It's clear he doesn't have any hope that people will make the 'right decisions' (the decisions he would make) and he wants to therefore control other people. He continues:

But Roosevelt also knew that the free market has never been a free license to take whatever you can from whomever you can. (Applause.) He understood the free market only works when there are rules of the road that ensure competition is fair and open and honest. And so he busted up monopolies, forcing those companies to compete for consumers with better services and better prices. And today, they still must. He fought to make sure businesses couldn’t profit by exploiting children or selling food or medicine that wasn’t safe. And today, they still can’t.

We simply cannot return to this brand of “you’re on your own” economics if we’re serious about rebuilding the middle class in this country.

And it is around here that we get to the heart of the matter- in the last quarter of his speech, after ripping on capitalism and freedom for 3/4's of the speech, that we finally here what he wants to do...

So what does that mean for restoring middle-class security in today’s economy? Well, it starts by making sure that everyone in America gets a fair shot at success. The truth is we’ll never be able to compete with other countries when it comes to who’s best at letting their businesses pay the lowest wages, who’s best at busting unions, who’s best at letting companies pollute as much as they want.

We need to remember that we can only do that together. It starts by making education a national mission -- a national mission. (Applause.) Government and businesses, parents and citizens. We need to remember that we can only do that together. It starts by making education a national mission -- a national mission. (Applause.) Government and businesses, parents and citizens. They should be rebuilding our roads and our bridges, laying down faster railroads and broadband, modernizing our schools. Of course, those productive investments cost money. They’re not free. And so we’ve also paid for these investments by asking everybody to do their fair share. And so we have to set priorities. If we want a strong middle class, then our tax code must reflect our values. We have to make choices.

So, in summary, here is Obama's alternative to free markets and capitalism- give him more power. Give him the power and authority to tell employers what to pay their employees, give him the power and authority to combine big government with big business and big labor (ie, fascism), give him and his cronies the power to give money to favored constituent groups to fund pet projects of vanity (palaces, statues, etc), and the power to demand that all of these decisions are paid for by someone else who does not want to pay for it- to use the power of guns to the head to make people give up cash to Obama and his people to feed their wrong ideas about the power of men to control others for their benefit.

Obama is wrong. He needs to be defeated- not just politically, but his ideas and beliefs need to be rejected by all good people and good citizens and patriots and he and his policies need to be forever rejected in decent society. We must instead look to capitalism and freedom and liberty and property protection to our future, and not look backward to the sort of tyranny that Obama is proposing.

President Obama, like most liberals and the party it controls (the once-proud Democratic Party), doesn't like the fact that you make decisions regarding your life- he wants to make them. And now that he has the power of trillions in taxpayer money and thousands of employees, he has the means to tell you how to live your own life. And so he has decided that he doesn't like big stores that thrive by providing goods and services to people in efficient and low-cost ways; rather, he likes small stores and so is going to go around the nation and pay for his administration to fly around the nation making speeches ordering you to not shop for great deals and save money at the big stores, but rather to shop at smaller stores, because he wants you to.

Liberals, being the elitists they are, don't really like Black Friday- as E.D. Kain describes it, these liberals reject Black Friday and the larger consumerism that accompanies this season (regrettably) for two reasons

...first, a sense that such overt consumerism is the hallmark of capitalism and that capitalism is somehow morally insufficient; and second, a distaste for the aesthetic of Black Friday – all those plebes rushing about buying things like so much chattel- these denizens of midnight Walmart sales are just icky...

It is the second thing that I believe really strikes me as the case, because most liberals think they are so much smarter than the rest of us and look down their noses at us, wanting to govern and manage us because they don't understand liberty, freedom, private property rights, capitalism, religion, morality, civic mindedness, charity, and all the other hallmarks of the conservative heartland of America. Because they don't understand these concepts, they reject them, pretending that they don't really exist, and that instead everyone who believes in them must be stupid or dumb, and so they wave around their Ivy League diploma's and listen to their pretentious public television or radio, use big words, scold everyone for not having proper grammar, and make fun of all the 'average people' scurrying about on Black Friday getting good deals and saving money and making our economy go around.

You see, you won't catch Barack Obama or other liberals out on Black Friday- he'll be joining the other Occupy Wall Street protesters in boycotting it, because they have enough money not to need deals, they have enough time to spend hours looking for a great deal, and they generally are not thrifty and efficient spenders enough to care about saving money as a family and getting the best deal.

Robert Frank is a great example of the sort of liberal who forms the intellectual backbone of modern day liberalism, the sort that dominates the Democratic Party today. He had time and money to go out and get several degrees in math and statistics, taking time off from his studies to work in government and give lectures, before he settled into an Ivy League school to lecture other elitists and write columns for snooty New York Times and write books with Ben Bernanke. For most of his life he has written and talked about how wealth and prosperity for all has somehow made the poor in America even more poor, and he sees no hypocrisy in doing so as he has flown around the world, eaten in nice restaurants, and lived in a nice house.

In this week's New York Times article How to End the Black Friday Madness, lectures those whom he sees as beneath him with a contempt just hidden (unlike the contempt that I hold him in that I am not hiding). He writes:

ADAM SMITH’S most enthusiastic modern disciples insist that the recipe for economic progress is to push government aside and let unfettered markets work their magic. His invisible hand theory does provide a tidy account of how market incentives can generate enormous wealth. But as Charles Darwin saw so clearly, unbridled competition doesn’t always promote the common good....
....In recent years, large retail chains have been competing to be the first to open their doors on Black Friday. The race is driven by the theory that stores with the earliest start time capture the most buyers and make the most sales. For many years, stores opened at a reasonable hour. Then, some started opening at 5 a.m., prompting complaints from employees about having to go to sleep early on Thanksgiving and miss out on time with their families. But retailers ignored those complaints, because their earlier start time proved so successful in luring customers away from rival outlets...

Frank, being an educated liberal, employs here the usual judgement of other people, feeling that he somehow gets to decide what is a 'reasonable hour' for stores to open, even though he does not run any sort of stores and has never served as a manager of any sort of store at any level his whole life.

From this place of supreme unwisdom and experience, guided by a piece of paper saying that he knows something, he has decided to play God and decide when people should start shopping. He then ignores the overtime that these employees are paid and has no knowledge of the many people hired just for this day- people who are not regular employees but who are given a paycheck on this day purely because the hours are not regular- and with this lack of knowledge of what is going on he has decided that it isn't becoming of employees to go in to work at a job that they choose to be at. Don't worry workers- with a guy like Frank on your side, he'll push for less jobs and less overtime and less hours, and in so doing make you more poor. He's like all other liberals, and the Liberal-in-Chief President Obama, in his utter failure to understand economics, math, statistics, people, or anything else about this world.

Frank believes that if we were all to empower him with the ability to control the world, the collective will would be better served by him controlling when we shop and how much items sell for and all the other sorts of personal decisions made by private individuals that he doesn't understand or know about.

I've never been a big fan of Black Friday, but if the liberals and Obama and Robert Frank are against it, I think that I need to change my tune, and do a little bit of online shopping tonight!

Stick it in Frank and Obama's eye- buy something tonight! Here are a couple suggestions...
Shop Amazon's New Kindle Fire
Shop Amazon's Holiday Toy List
Shop Amazon's Gift Cards - Perfect Anytime
Shop Amazon's Christmas Corner - Holiday decor, tableware, and entertainment

UPDATE: Welcome readers from The Village Voice! Take a look around and learn something!

Via Reason:

...The Treasury Department yesterday revised its loss estimate for the Government Motors bailout from $14.33 billion to $23.6 billion, thanks to the company’s sinking stock price. GM’s Sept. 30 closing price, on which the new estimate is based, was $20.18, about $13 less than its December IPO price and $35 less than what is needed for taxpayers to break even.

The $23.6 billion represents a 25 percent loss on the feds $60 billion direct “investment” in GM. But that’s not all that taxpayers are on the hook for. As I explained previously, Uncle Sam’s special GM bankruptcy package allowed the company to write off $45 billion in previous losses going forward. This could work out to as much as $15 billion in tax savings that GM wouldn’t have had had it gone through a normal bankruptcy. Why? Because after bankruptcy, the tax liabilities of companies increase since they have no more losses to write off.

This means that the total hit to taxpayers, who still own about a quarter of the company, could add up to $38.6 billion. That’s even more that the $34 billion on the outside I had predicted in May....

...GM’s new competitors are not Toyota and Honda that share its cost structure but Hyndai and Kia that have a far leaner one. These companies concentrate on the small car market and don’t offer a full product line so GM and Ford’s most profitable vehicles—those evil, gas-guzzling, greenhouse-gas emitting SUV’s and pickup trucks—are somewhat insulated from the downward price pressure. But the greens and Obama administration want GM to reorient its product mix away from big cars and toward money-losing hybrids and electrics, something that could well put GM back in a hole.

But that’s part of the administration’s long-term strategy for ruining GM....

...But the Ostrich-in-Chief Barack Obama, who had assured taxpayers that their GM "investment" would cost them "not a dime," is drawing the opposite lesson, obviously. He has been trumpeting the success of the bailout—repeatedly....

Read the whole article here- it is very good, and echo's a lot of my earlier comments and thoughts about the whole 'bailout.' From the beginning, I was critical of the bailout. In my post More Thoughts on the Auto Loan Bailout written on December 12, 2008, I wrote:

I don't think that the banks should have bailed out either (auto company), and by bailing them out, Congress created this whole auto loan mess themselves. Second, the reason I'm not in favor of the bailout is out of principle- it is not fair and morally right that some companies are allowed to go bankrupt by the government, and others are saved with loans. Why one company and not another? The only arguments I ever hear in favor of the auto loan is the the auto companies affect a lot of people- that's true, but if you gave out loans of $1 million to 25,000 small companies (total of $25 billion, same as auto companies), that would probably affect a lot of people too.

And also, why now? Why let past companies fail, and then come in and rescue one now? Were the other companies in the past less deserving- were their works less important than the workers now? My grandpa worked for a steel company, and the US government let it go under- why didn't it rescue that company and provide money for my grandpa's pension and healthcare? Why rescue GM now- because it has better lawyers and lobbyists? That's not how America works- that is how corrupt regimes work.

The simple fact of the matter is that under President Barack Obama and the new Democratic Party of Pelosi and Reid, government policy is now to direct money borrowed from China to favored groups in American society, such as auto workers and those who work for 'environmentally friendly' companies like Solyndra and SunPower. Government leaders take a cut of this money to make themselves more and more wealthy-see Frank, Dodd, Obama, Pelosi, Gore, Clinton, etc for a range of Democratic Congressman who have made themselves rich redirecting taxpayer funds. And thus America becomes just like every other corrupt oligarchy in the world, and our life, liberties, and property is less protected.

The only way to stop this is to throw the bums out next election. That means Obama has to go, and Democrats and Republicans who have supported his agenda also have to go- that's pretty much every Democrat and a good number of Republicans too. The most tea-party or conservative candidate who can win the general election must be nominated and we must act to get them elected, or America will continue to slide into the kind of tyranny that is evident when looking back at the sad and unprincipled chapter of the auto loan bailout.

For more information on this subject, check out Crash Course: The American Automobile Industry's Road to Bankruptcy and Bailout-and Beyond or Bail Out or What Would the Founders Say?: A Patriot's Answers to America's Most Pressing Problems or How Capitalism Will Save Us: Why Free People and Free Markets Are the Best Answer in Today's Economy.

In July of 2010 in response to a Politico poll that showed how out of touch the elites in Washington DC were from the rest of the nation I wrote "while the countryside is being plundered, the Democratic lords and Emperor Obama are living in a different world based on luxury, hope, and change."

Turns out that I was right- while the rest of the nation has been battling unemployment, falling salaries, and a feeling that things are going in the wrong direction, Washington DC has become the wealthiest U.S. metropolitan area according to recent Census data. Whereas in years past wealthiest metropolitan areas were based on producing goods and services, Washington DC has become the nation's wealthiest area on the backs of booming salaries and employment for government workers and booming employment and a growing concentration of lawyers and lobbyists.

Unlike recently passed Silicon Valley which built its wealth on innovation and production of computers or historic wealthy areas like Oakland County Michigan which was built on money generated from automobile production, under President Barack Obama (Democrat, President since 2009) and the Democrats (control of House from 2006-2011 and Senate since 2006), Washington DC simply vacuums trillions of dollars from taxpayers and trillions more in debt in order to give high salaries to ever more inefficient government employees and to distribute gifts and favors and contracts to special interests.

With about 5.6 million residents, the Washington region has an aggregate household income of about $221.4 billion. The San Jose area (Silicon Valley) has about 1.8 million people and income of $67 billion, according to census figures gathered from the American Community Survey. Although there is considerable income disparity in Washington DC (in the District of Columbia almost 11 percent of the city’s population qualifies as “very poor"), total compensation for federal workers (including health care and other benefits) soared last year to an average of $126,369, compared with $122,697 in 2009 and even less than that in years before that. In addition to soaring federal pay, employment has been stable as well- the unemployment rate in the Washington metro area was 6.1 percent, compared with nationally joblessness at 9.1 percent (source).

In addition to booming salary and jobs for federal workers during this recession, there has also been a stunning rise in the number of lobbyists and lawyers working over the federal government- spending on lobbying efforts reached a new record of $3.51 billion last year and in 2010 there were a new record number of registered lobbyists (12,964), with most working in or around the nation’s capital. This is likely the result of the Democrats crony capitalism policies, which award contracts and business to those who are politically connected and make campaign donations to Democrats (see Solyndra or the bailout of General Motors for examples of this).

I personally saw this sort of corruption when I visited our nation's capitol last. After that visit, I was moved to write this:

Washington DC is booming. I think it is one of the few states in the nation to actually have increasingly employment, job growth, and GDP growth. There are signs everywhere of prosperity and building- roads are being repaired, monuments are being revamped, buildings are adding on, and fresh paint and plaster is in abundance. On a guidebook of DC I read that our capitol was designed to look like the capitols of the Emperors and despots of Europe, but it was okay because we lived in a free nation that celebrated liberty and property. Well, as our country becomes more despotic and tyrannical, it is going to look increasingly like those capitols of the old days, when the Emperor took money from the countryside to build himself new statues and bigger palaces.

There is no way to sugar-coat this sort of thing or make it appear to be some sort of sign of progress. President Obama campaigned on cleaning up Washington, and he has done the exact opposite, making Washington a rising cesspool of corruption and money while the rest of the nation struggles to make ends meet. There needs to be a house-cleaning in 2012 to get rid of the people who have been in charge there over the last couple years when the problem has gotten dramatically worse, and since Bush and the Republicans are not in charge any more, that means the Democrats (who control the bureaucracy, Presidency, and Senate) should be thrown out of their fancy palaces in DC so that they can find real jobs making goods and providing services in good old productive American cities.

Mark Levin probably agrees with me- check out his book Ameritopia: The Unmaking of America.

The sign of the Occupy Wall Street protester shouts 'False Gods of Wall Street', but in other signs and in interviews and conversations, these protesters loudly shout that their real gods are people who run governments. They believe in government policy- see sign after sign encouraging more spending, more government programs, more government control of the economy and people, and sign after honoring and supporting 'the People'. The 'P' in 'People' is always capitalized, because they are not talking about supporting the people who go to work every day, pay their taxes, pay on their debts, and try to make a better world for their children- no, these Occupy protesters support the People, who believe that Men are Gods and that if Men were given power to control other Men, the world would be a better place.

The best way for a company today to secure billions in loans is to donate money to Democrats, who will then steer taxpayer money to these companies so that they can then donate thousands of dollars to Democrats. At least that is the lesson that SunPower Corporation demonstrates.

I first heard about SunPower on Sean Hannity's show, where he was talking about how SunPower is going to be twice the scandal that Solyndra is. SunPower is a company with headquarters in California that builds solar panels and employees over 1500 people. For the last several years, it has been unprofitable and bleeding cash and is now heavily in debt, with a business model that most analysts believe is unsuccessful. But yet the United States Department of Energy gave a last-minute loan to this company for $1.2 billion on the hope that it will suddenly become profitable and also because this loan will help SunPower to create jobs (at a cost of $80/million per job). Here is more information on SunPower, via Human Events:

How did a failing California solar company, buffeted by short sellers and shareholder lawsuits, receive a $1.2 billion federal loan guarantee for a photovoltaic electricity ranch project—three weeks after it announced it was building new manufacturing plant in Mexicali, Mexico, to build the panels for the project.

The company, SunPower (SPWR-NASDAQ), now carries $820 million in debt, an amount $20 million greater than its market capitalization. If SunPower was a bank, the feds would shut it down. Instead, it received a lifeline twice the size of the money sent down the Solyndra drain....

....According to the SunPower PAC filings for its activities in the 2010 midterm election campaign cycle, it donated more than $36,000. Of the $15,650 donated to House and Senate candidates, $14,650 went to Democrats, with these top recipients: $4,000 to Sen. Harry Reid (D.-Nev.), $3,000 to Rep. Gabrielle Gifford (D.-Ariz.) and $2,900 Sen. Barbara Boxer (D.-Calif.)...

Most of the attention on SunPower centers on Democratic California Congressman George Miller, who has been a big proponent of SunPower, probably because it has a major manufacturing facility in Miller's district and his son happens to work for the company as a lobbyist- in fact, Congressman Miller has supported the very loans that pay his sons $178K/year salary!

But in reality, the story is not simply one of a Democratic Congressman who steers massive loans to a company his son works for- in reality, the story is that SunPower is yet another example of the sort of crony capitalism that the new Democratic Party and Barack Obama support.

A quick look on OpenSecrets.org demonstrates how the corrupt system of government that Democrats run actually works. Opensecrets tracks how much money donors give to political candidates. To reward all of my loyal readers, I went ahead and did some research for you on OpenSecrets to find out just how politically connected SunPower was so that we can speculate using real numbers on how much of a role their political donations might have played in securing taxpayer-backed loans for their unprofitable business.

Using OpenSecrets,org, I searched the 2008, 2010, and 2012 cycles, and then under 'occupation' type I wrote in 'sunpower', and was happy to see 156 entries for people who work at SunPower. These entries indicate employees of SunPower who gave money in these campaign cycles. I sorted all of the 156 entries into six columns to help me to better understand the data.

The first column that I created was of the total amount of money that employees of SolarPower gave to Republicans. This amount came to $250, given to the Republican National Committee.

The second column was the total amount of money that employees of SolarPower gave to Democrats from 2008-2012. This amount comes to $82,700, most of it going to President Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign or the Democratic National Commitee.

The third column that I created represented money given to liberal/Democrat interest groups that primarily donate money to Democrats- this amounted to $15,750.

The fourth column showed that the amount of money given to conservative/GOP interest groups was $500.

Employees of SunPower also gave $83,006 to a political action committee that was set up called SunPower PAC, which in turn has donated heavily to Democrats (SunPower PAC has given $16.7K to Democrats vs $6K to GOP).

Employees of SunPower also gave $45,700 to a political action committee called Solar Energy Industries Association, which has also given more heavily to Democrats (2006-2012, $105.9K to Democrats vs $54K to the GOP).

The data is pretty clear- donating money to Democrats, in particular to Barack Obama, assures your company will receive massive loans regardless if your company is profitable or a good investment.

Under this Democratic administration, supported by these Democrats in Congress, the way to wealth, loans, high pay, and job security is to donate money to the Democratic party and then have them use the power of government to grant you these things. If the GOP were to do these things, it would be wrong too, but the reality of the situation is that it is not a GOP administration overseen and supported by a GOP Congress acting in such a corrupt manner, it is a Democrat with oversight and support from Democrats. 'Hypothetical Corrupt Republican' isn't on the ballot in 2012- Barack Obama is, and it really doesn't matter who the Republicans nominate, because they haven't demonstrated this level of corruption yet, whereas Barack Obama has. Voters need to vote out these Democrats who have used campaign donations and family connections to corrupt the usual decision-making process for granting government loans and turned our once great nation of the free and the brave into the home of the corrupt and bought-off.

For those who are new to my blog, I've written about this topic before- see my posts State Capitalism, Crony Capitalism, Corrupt Capitalism, Syndicaliam, Corporatism... Obamaism or The Third Way: Obama and Fascism.

UPDATE: The Detroit News today ran another editorial about Solyndra, in it pointing out that

...in October last year, Solyndra donated $7,500 to the California Democratic Party and that company employees had kicked in $20,000 to Democratic candidates. They also contributed to the Republicans. But the Times said records show about 72 percent of the company's political contributions went to the Democrats and only 27 percent to Republicans. Contributing to Solyndra's failure were allegations that once it received the government-backed loans, it spent funds willy-nilly, including on a new $700 million plant deemed unnecessary by some company insiders....

That's how it works boys and girls- donate money to Democrats, get massive loans, pay yourself big salaries and live life large, and then get out before it all goes under, leaving taxpayers holding the bill. That's what you get when you vote Democrat (and sometimes for squishy GOPers too).

Listening to a recent speech by US President Barack Obama (Democrat) regarding the passage of the American Invents Act at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Virginia, I was bothered by way that he phrased things. Shortly into his speech, he said:

...But there are other steps that (the national government) can take. Today, for example, my (the national government) administration is announcing a new center that will help companies reduce the time and cost of developing lifesaving drugs. When scientists and researchers at the National Institutes of Health discover a new cure or breakthrough, (the national government's) going to make it easier for startup companies to sell those products to the people who need them. (The national government) got more than 100 universities and companies to agree that they’ll work together to bring more inventions to market as fast as possible. And (the national government's) also developing a strategy to create jobs in biotechnology, which has tremendous promise for health, clean energy and the environment....

....So (the national government's) going to have to make sure that (the national government's) continuing to invest in basic research so you can do the work that you’re capable of — and still pay the rent, which is important, you will find out. (ha ha, paying the bills is funny.)

(The national government's) need to continue to provide incentives and support to make sure the next generation of manufacturing takes root not in China or in Europe, but right here in the United States — because it’s not enough to invent things here; our workers should also be building the products that are stamped with three proud words: Made in America.

And if (the national government) wants companies to hire our workers, (the national government) needs to make sure we give every American the skills and education that they need to compete. (The national government has) got to have more schools like Thomas Jefferson....

...That’s why (the national government's) boosting science and technology and engineering and math education all across the country. And that’s why (the national government's) also working with businesses to train more engineers, and revitalize our community colleges so they can provide our workers with new skills and training. And, finally, that’s why (the national government's) making sure that all of our children can afford to fulfill their dream of a college education — that they can afford to go to school and that Pell grants and student loan programs ensure that they don’t come out of college with mountains of debt.

This is the economy (the national government) needs to build — one where innovation is encouraged, education is a national mission, and new jobs and businesses take root right here in America.

So that’s the long-term project.

To be helpful, I replaced the word 'we' with 'the national government' so that I could better understand exactly what Obama sees as the long-term project of change for our nation.

You see, what bothers me is that the economic philosophy that I increasingly believe that Obama is increasingly pushing in our nation is State Socialism. Wikipedia describes it this way:

State socialism is an economic system with limited socialist characteristics, such as public ownership of major industries, remedial measures to benefit the working class, and a gradual process of developing socialism through government policy.

Proponents of state socialism claim the state, through practical considerations of governing, must play at least a temporary part in building socialism. Many Socialists, such as Fredrick Engels and Saint-Simon, take the position that the state will change in nature and function in a socialist society; specifically, the nature of the state would change from one of political rule over people into a scientific administration of the processes of production; specifically the state would become a coordinating economic entity of inclusive associations rather than a mechanism of class and political control....

...Traditional social democrats and non-revolutionary democratic socialists argue for a gradual, peaceful transition from capitalism to socialism. They wish to abolish capitalism, but through political reform rather than revolution. This method of gradualism implies utilization of the existing state apparatus and machinery of government to gradually move society toward socialism, and is sometimes derided by other socialists as a form of "socialism from above" or political "elitism" for relying on electoral means to achieve socialism....

....Trotskyists believe that central planners, regardless of their intellectual capacity, operate without the input and participation of the millions of people who participate in the economy who understand/respond to local conditions and changes in the economy, and because of this criticize central state planning as being unable to effectively coordinate all economic activity....

Perhaps I'm wrong, and Obama isn't in favor of State Socialism, but I think I'm narrowing down exactly just exactly this guy is thinking for the future of America.

Although I am no expert in this, I have always felt that the 1930's were an interesting time period in our nation. The Victorian age had come to a bloody conclusion with World War One, and a whole generation of people were now being raised in a society that saw their parents as failures- their attempts to repress their sexual urges, their attempts to stick to the old ways, their attempts to put in place world peace, their attempts to build multinational nations- all had led to one of the most bloody and brutal and worthless wars of all time. Technology was changing fast- cars and telephones and radio and motion picture- and the children of the 1910's and 1920's thought that they had everything figured out- they thought that where other generations had failed due to their reliance on religion, traditional values, free markets, republicanism, and limited government, they would succeed by figuring out a third way of doing things, a practical way of doing things, a way of doing things that used the power of government to make society a better place to live. This new generation, horrified by WWI and mocking their parents lack of technology skills, had it all figured out, and ushered in an era of fascism and communism and World War Two.

In my post 1930's Are Root of All That is Wrong I cataloged all of the laws that were passed in the 1930's in America that are with us today- such as the Unemployment Compensation Tax (MI, 1936), Oil and Gas Severance Tax (MI, 1929), Social Security Act (USA, 1935), Fair Labor Standards Act (USA, 1938), Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act (USA, 1930), Hoover Tax Hike (USA, 1932), National Labor Relations Act (USA, 1935), Private Schools, Act 302 of 1921 (MI, 1921), Roosevelt moves traditional Thanksgiving Day (1939), Regulating Firearms, Act 373 (MI, 1927), US moves off gold standard (1933), Reapportionment Act (USA, 1929), etc. Looking through that list and thinking of how much America was changed by one generation, by one President, by one party, by one decade (mostly), I was always stunned, and wondered how people had let that come to pass.

As it turns out, the Republican Party of 1936 had put together a platform to oppose a lot of these fascist ideas, but people loved their hope and change and returned FDR to the White House instead, and so the Great Depression dragged on for another decade. Via Conservative Hideout, let's take a walk back in history and see just exactly what the GOP was offering as an alternative back then to the high taxes, high regulation, crony capitalism, fascist third way system that FDR was pushing our nation into. Here is a good chunk of the 1936 Republican Party Platform:

1936 Republican Party PlatformAmerica is in peril. The welfare of American men and women and the future of our youth are at stake. We dedicate ourselves to the preservation of their political liberty, their individual opportunity and their character as free citizens, which today for the first time are threatened by Government itself.

For three long years the New Deal Administration has dishonored American traditions and flagrantly betrayed the pledges upon which the Democratic Party sought and received public support. The powers of Congress have been usurped by the President... the rights and liberties of American citizens have been violated... regulated monopoly has displaced free enterprise.... it has intimidated witnesses and interfered with the right of petition... it has been guilty of frightful waste and extravagance, using public funds for partisan political purposes... it has promoted investigations to harass and intimidate American citizens, at the same time denying investigations into its own improper expenditures... it has created a vast multitude of new offices, filled them with its favorites, set up a centralized bureaucracy, and sent out swarms of inspectors to harass our people.... it has bred fear and hesitation in commerce and industry, thus discouraging new enterprises, preventing employment and prolonging the depression.... appeals to passion and class prejudice have replaced reason and tolerance.

To a free people, these actions are insufferable. This campaign cannot be waged on the traditional differences between the Republican and Democratic parties. The responsibility of this election transcends all previous political divisions. We invite all Americans, irrespective of party, to join us in defense of American institutions. We pledge ourselves:

...To preserve the American system of free enterprise, private competition, and equality of opportunity, and to seek its constant betterment in the interests of all.

The only permanent solution of the unemployment problem is the absorption of the unemployed by industry and agriculture. To that end, we advocate: Removal of restrictions on production. Abandonment of all New Deal policies that raise production costs, increase the cost of living, and thereby restrict buying, reduce volume and prevent reemployment. Encouragement instead of hindrance to legitimate business. Withdrawal of government from competition with private payrolls. Elimination of unnecessary and hampering regulations. Adoption of such other policies as will furnish a chance for individual enterprise, industrial expansion, and the restoration of jobs.

Society has an obligation to promote the security of the people, by affording some measure of protection against involuntary unemployment and dependency in old age. The New Deal policies, while purporting to provide social security, have, in fact, endangered it. We propose a system of old age security, based upon the following principles: 1. We approve a pay-as-you-go policy, which requires of each generation the support of the aged and the determination of what is just and adequate, 2. Every American citizen over sixty-five should receive the supplementary payment necessary to provide a minimum income sufficient to protect him or her from want. 3. Each state and territory, upon complying with simple and general minimum standards, should receive from the federal government a graduated contribution in proportion to its own, up to a fixed maximum....

...Nearly sixty percent of all imports into the United States are now free of duty. The other forty percent of imports compete directly with the product of our industry. We would keep on the free list all products not grown or produced in the United States in commercial quantities. As to all commodities that commercially compete with our farms, our forests, our mines, our fisheries, our oil wells, our labor and our industries, sufficient protection should be maintained at all times to defend the American farmer and the American wage earner from the destructive competition emanating from the subsidies of foreign governments and the imports from low-wage and depreciated-currency countries....

...We recognize the existence of a field within which governmental regulation is desirable and salutary. The authority to regulate should be vested in an independent tribunal acting under clear and specific laws establishing definite standards. Their determinations on law and facts should be subject to review by the Courts. We favor Federal regulation, within the Constitution, of the marketing of securities to protect investors. We favor also Federal regulation of the interstate activities of public utilities...

...We pledge ourselves to the merit system, virtually destroyed by New Deal spoilsmen. It should be restored, improved and extended. We will provide such conditions as offer an attractive permanent career in government service to young men and women of ability, irrespective of party affiliations.

The New Deal Administration has been characterized by shameful waste, and general financial irresponsibility. It has piled deficit upon deficit. It threatens national bankruptcy and the destruction through inflation of insurance policies and savings bank deposits. We pledge ourselves to: Stop the folly of uncontrolled spending. Balance the budget—not by increasing taxes but by cutting expenditures, drastically and immediately. Revise the federal tax system and coordinate it with state and local tax systems. Use the taxing power for raising revenue and not for punitive or political purposes.

We advocate a sound currency to be preserved at all hazards. The first requisite to a sound and stable currency is a balanced budget. We oppose further devaluation of the dollar. We will restore to the Congress the authority lodged with it by the Constitution to coin money and regulate the value thereof by repealing all the laws delegating this authority to the Executive....

...We assume the obligations and duties imposed upon Government by modern conditions. We affirm our unalterable conviction that, in the future as in the past, the fate of the nation will depend, not so much on the wisdom and power of government, as on the character and virtue, self-reliance, industry and thrift of the people and on their willingness to meet the responsibilities essential to the preservation of a free society.