Five Most Wanted Economic Villains

Obama Geithner Credit Downgrade Deal SC Five Most Wanted Economic Villains

Everyone knows that the American financial system has been through a rough few years. Record public deficits, high unemployment, stagnant economic growth, yada, yada, yada. No surprise there. Americans can’t decide exactly who is to blame: Republicans or Democrats? Let’s just split the difference; we’ve decided and have a Republican House and Democratic Senate and Presidency. Maybe when government is closely divided, they’ll end up doing less damage that way. Or maybe not. It seems like the closely divided Congress has done little to ease our economic woes. Both parties bear some of the blame. Who, though, are the individuals who bear the most guilt for what has transpired? Who are the five most wanted economic villains in the modern day USA?

The fifth most guilty individual is Nancy Pelosi, the former majority leader of the House and current minority leader. Why Ms. Pelosi? After all, Congressional scholar Norman Ornstein stated that the House presided over by Pelosi was “on a path to become one of the most productive since the Great Society.” Isn’t that a good thing? Halt. The word “productive” when applied to the free enterprise system and about everything else besides government equals a good thing. When the word is applied to government, it is often a bad thing. The Great Society, as you know, was a massive increase in the size of the federal government. Nancy Pelosi’s “productivity” threatens to have much of the same result: expansion, expansion, expansion. She helped expand the federal government by passing a massive and ineffective stimulus bill, boosted the minimum wage (I thought we wanted less unemployment), and passed Obamacare, an unpopular program that threatens to wreak financial havoc on an already-troubled country. Such are some of Pelosi’s worst deeds.

Hate to hit on a guy who’s out of office, but he deserves it. Mr. Timothy Geithner stood behind some of the worst shenanigans in modern American economic history. Geithner was both head of the New York Federal Reserve and then the Secretary of the Treasury during Obama’s first term. In both positions, he strongly advocated for more financial assistance for big banks, from the budget in the form of TARP and the Federal Reserve in the form of cheap loans. These are probably his worst acts. Other than that, he failed to arrest the economic decline of the country during his time as Treasury Secretary.

Paul Krugman comes next. Mr. Krugman is a Nobel Laureate, professor, and New York Times columnist. His personal motto seems to be “never enough government.” No matter how many billions of dollars in stimulus Barack Obama and the Congress applied to the economy, it was never enough for Dr. Krugman. Whatever happens, he is sure to reply that the problem is insufficient government. No matter that the consensus seems to have emerged around free market, neoclassical economics instead of Dr. Krugman’s Keynesianism. Despite the unrivaled success of the free market, expect him to continue espousing his noxious form of economic interventionism to his death bed.

Now for the man you knew would have to be on the list. President Barack Obama shares the same liberal philosophy as Dr. Krugman, professions of being a moderate aside. He promised hope and has only brought disillusionment to a generation in desperate need of hope. Exploding food stamp use, massive government spending, and even an increased racial divide in terms of wealth have occurred under Obama . According to a recent article in the New York Times, Blacks and Hispanics have suffered far more than whites during his Presidency in economic terms. Of course, there is also Obamacare, which threatens to complete the morphing of the U.S. from one of the best places for medical care on the planet to a laughingstock in the international community.

At the top of the list of economic bunglers comes Ben Bernanke. Dr. Bernanke has failed to fix the economy despite the unprecedented amounts of money he has poured into the economy through his various QE programs. For those of you behind on the lingo, QE programs essentially increase the money supply by using the various tools of the Federal Reserve to do so. If QE 1, QE 2, QE3, and QE4 have failed to work, don’t hold your breath expecting it to work in the future. The unemployment rate is still bad despite Bernanke’s QEs and Obama’s stimulus plans. Economic growth is anemic. One bright spot has been the bubble Bernanke has helped create in the US stock market. But this bubble will come to an end; and when it does, it won’t be pretty.

Thankfully, Americans aren’t stupid like the central planners like to think, and they will wake up at some point to the fruitless attempts Bernanke, Obama, and company have made to stimulate the economy. The only question is: will they do it soon enough, or will America have to reach a place so ugly that we won’t recognize the America of our youth? Let us hope and pray that someone out there will have the gumption to take on the economic failures of the establishment before it is too late.

 

F. Peter Brown is Editor at the Sound Money Institute and Associate Editor at the Western Center for Journalism. He tweets  @FPBLibertarian.

 

Barack Obama: George W. Bush Fan Or Foe?

Barack Obama Change sign SC Barack Obama: George W. Bush Fan or Foe?

Prior to being elected President, Barack Obama came across as a real outsider hoping to bring change to a failing system personified in one man: then-President of the United States George W. Bush. Indeed, much of the criticism leveled against Bush was valid. He and the Congress had started long and costly wars in Afghanistan and Iraq at a time when America could ill afford to be spending such amounts, given the precarious state of its public finances. Bush had made compromises with treasured civil liberties by passing the invasive Patriot Act and indefinitely detaining suspects at Guantanamo Bay. Some of these suspects at Guantanamo Bay had been tortured by the American authorities. George W. Bush had been a combination of the worst traits of Republicans and Democrats; he had combined the aggressive militarism and nationalism of Republicans, hated by many people worldwide, with the free spending ways of the liberal Democrats, leading to the worst public finances this nation had ever seen (that is, before Barack Obama’s presidency). He gave Obama a mess that unfortunately has been further complicated by Obama instead of cleaned up. Indeed, while many admired George W. Bush’s personal decency, as far as policy was concerned, many began to see Bush’s policies for what they were: disasters.

Many of these things should be no mystery to anyone after Obama rightfully criticized Bush over and over again in the 2008 campaign. It has been noted by some writers that Obama’s policies have been very oddly a continuation of much of what Bush’s policies were while he was in office. Of course, there have been differences as one would hope to see between a “conservative” Republican and a far-left Democrat, but the similarities have been uncanny. Obama has continued Bush’s interventionist ways and has compiled a record of spending that matches his largess.

That is why it was no surprise to see Barack Obama get up and roundly praise the man whom he had routinely condemned to get elected. To see him chum around with the former Presidents both left and right showed what a sham his criticisms of Bush had been. Bush was transformed from the almost devilish figure he had been to Obama in his early days to a man of “compassion and generosity,” a real example (in Obama’s eyes) of what a leader should be. It is clear that Barack Obama has joined the “world’s most exclusive club” and has forgotten the very reasons why he wanted to be elected in the first place. It was also no surprise to see George W. Bush praised by Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton in addition to Obama. Maybe this “conservative” President, this “Reaganite,” is a little more to the left than we had assumed. Maybe our current President is a little more of an insider and a statist than he appeared to be in order to get elected to the world’s most powerful office. Food for thought, at least.

 

F. Peter Brown is an Associate Editor at the Western Center for Journalism and Editor at the Sound Money Institute. Follow him on Twitter @FPBLibertarian .

 

Photo Credit: Dustin C. Oliver Creative Commons

Why CPAC Was Right To Turn Down Chris Christie

Chris Christie SC 1024x781 Why CPAC Was Right To Turn Down Chris Christie

The organizers of CPAC have come under sharp criticism for not allowing Chris Christie to speak at CPAC. Those who criticize are the same RINOs who have been distorting the brand of the Republican Party, trying to turn it into a Democratic Party lookalike. Although Christie has not been uniformly bad, this blue state governor has become far too blue to be invited to the conference.

Al Cardenas, the head of the American Conservative Union, has done a great job of courageously explaining why Christie is unfit to be heard at CPAC. As he said recently, the governor “strongly advocated for the passage of a 60 billion dollar plus pork barrel bill, containing only $9 billion dollars in disaster assistance , and he signed up with the federal government to expand Medicaid at a time when his state can ill afford it, so he was not invited to speak.” Unfortunately, Cardenas did not tell the whole story of why Christie should not speak, as his positions on a number of issues conflict with the limited government stance conservatives stand for.

Chris Christie has strayed so far from the conservative fold that some Republicans speculated whether or not he would be chosen for a position in Obama’s cabinet.  He has bought into the liberal rhetoric in areas as diverse as guns, abortion, and global warming. As recently as this last summer, Christie said that he would be opposed to further expanding Medicaid in his state.  Notably, he praised Obama’s response to Hurricane Sandy, at a critical  time when his supposed ally Mitt Romney could ill afford to be stabbed in the back by a big backer. Mr. Christie has a reputation for not reciprocating assistance he receives.

Do we really need someone like this to speak at conservatism’s premier event?

BaltSun Fails To Highlight Pro-Choice Dem’s Hypocrisy On Pregnancy Center Regulation

Newspaper 2 SC BaltSun Fails to Highlight Pro Choice Dems Hypocrisy on Pregnancy Center Regulation

Last night the Baltimore City Council became the first in the nation to pass a law that would require pro-life crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) to post in

writing disclaimers noting that they do not provide abortion services or contraceptives nor refer women to persons or clinics who do.

Reporting the story in the November 24 paper, the Baltimore Sun’s Julie Scharper quoted the bill’s author and council president Stephanie Rawlings-Blake (D)

heralding the passage of the bill as “a step towards making sure that women have the information they need to make the right decision for their health and

their future.”

Yet Scharper failed to point out to readers that Rawlings-Blake actually voted against an amendment that would also apply her standard to abortion clinics.

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Photo Credit: judsond (Creative Commons)

New ABC Rules Helps Some Papers Boost Circ

Newspaper 2 SC New ABC Rules Helps Some Papers Boost Circ

NEW YORK  While U.S. newspapers are losing subscribers at a staggering rate, a few dailies stand out because their circulation is rising. But they aren’t necessarily selling more copies.

Here’s why: Since April 1, new auditing rules have made it easier for newspapers to count a reader as a paying customer.

These looser standards are especially helpful to a newspaper if it sells an “electronic edition.” That can include a subscriber-only Web site, such as what

The Wall Street Journal has, or it can be a digital replica of a newspaper’s printed product. Several dozen publications, including USA Today, sell access to

these daily “e-editions” that show how the news was laid out in print.

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Photo Credit: judsond (Creative Commons)

European Commission Urges New Media Literacy

The European Commission (EC) said on August 20 2009 that Europeans young and old could miss out on the benefits of today’s high-tech information society

unless more is done to make them “media literate” enough to access, analyse and evaluate images, sounds and texts and use traditional and new media to

communicate and create media content.

The Commission said that European Union countries and the media industry need to increase awareness of the many media messages people encounter, be they

advertisements, movies or online content.

Information Society and Media Commissioner Viviane Reding said: “Interacting with the media now means a lot more than writing to a newspaper. Media,

especially new digital technologies, involve more Europeans in a world of sharing, interaction and creation. Consumers today can create their own content and

make new works by transforming third party content.

Read More: -by Clive Leviev-Sawyer

CNN FINALLY Reports ClimateGate — To Downplay It Of Course

CNN sign SC CNN FINALLY Reports ClimateGate    To Downplay It Of Course

It only took CNN six days to notice the growing international scandal known as Climategate, and when it finally reported on the matter, it predictably did so

by downplaying the significance.

Maybe even more embarrassing for the supposedly “Most Trusted Name In News,” Russia Today did a far better job of detailing what happened at Britain’s

Climate Research Unit and how the global warming debate is impacted by it.

Throughout her report on Wednesday’s “The Situation Room,” CNN correspondent Brooke Baldwin regularly referred to the “global warming consensus.”

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Time Inc.’s Squires Assembles Team Of Rivals To Harness Digital Media

Some of the magazine industry’s biggest names are on the verge of forming a new company that would allow them to take the digital future into their own hands.
The company would make up one of the biggest alliances among rival publishers ever formed in print media, with Time Inc., Condé Nast and Hearst all expected to join, houses that together publish more than 50 magazines, including The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Vogue, Time, People, Sports Illustrated, Esquire and O, The Oprah Magazine.
The company will prepare magazines that can work across multiple digital platforms, whether the iPhone, the BlackBerry or countless other digital devices. The company will not develop an e-book, but create something that people familiar with the plans compare to iTunes—a store where you can buy new and distinct iterations of The New Yorker or Time. Print magazines will also be for sale.

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Washington Post Closing U.S. Bureaus

NEW YORK — The Washington Post is closing its bureaus in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York as the money-losing newspaper retrenches to focus on politics and local news in the nation’s capital.
“At a time of limited resources and increased competitive pressure, it’s necessary to concentrate our journalistic firepower on our central mission of covering Washington and the news, trends and ideas that shape both the region and the countries politics, policies and government,” the paper’s top editor, Marcus Brauchli, wrote in a memo to employees that was obtained by Reuters.

Read More: -Thomson Reuters

Mainstream Media: “Propoganda And Fiction”

Iowa Defense Alliance

 MSNBC logo SC1 Mainstream Media: Propoganda and Fiction

    Following the bias in the media has become an interest to me. Each day finds more to cause my uneasiness and fear for what various media outlets are doing to take down America. I found an article from The Bulletin by Herb Denenberg which not only points out what the media is doing with their bias and slanted reporting but also what President Obama is doing with “change that can destroy America.” I share portions of the article here but urge readers to read the entire piece.

… don’t underestimate the damages these papers are doing. The mainstream media was largely responsible for electing Mr. Obama. It has been responsible for covering up his radical policies, radical appointments and endless blunders. If not reversed somehow, the course set by Mr. Obama has the potential to destroy America and the free world. That means America faces three enemies that will destroy us if they get their way: the terrorists, the Obama administration and the mainstream media.

     Add to what Mr. Denenberg has so clearly communicated is information in Liberty AND Tyranny by Mark R. Levin. I did not have to read far into the book to learn how the media is working in partnership with Modern Liberals, which Levin terms ‘Statists.’

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