Posted by
Noam D. Gear on Tuesday, April 28, 2009 12:00:00 AM
“The economy will get worse before it gets better.” I have heard this predictive promise often since January, from many people and in many settings.
Because I was raised in Upstate New York, my ears are keenly tuned to this message of hope. New York is stuck in its 25th year of “getting worse before it gets better”. For New Yorkers, liberal social policies have been delivering the first half (e.g. “getting worse”) of that deal for almost three decades. And now, Obama has announced that these policies will guide the whole country.
Obama explains, “we must build our house upon a rock, and must lay a new foundation”. Notice here that Obama uses Bible phrases to peddle his new plan. However, his real meaning comes from his Budget Plan, not the Bible.
The “Rock” is the Rock of a $16 Trillion National debt that will pay for the free stuff he has budgeted for his supporters. He will grow our debt to surpass our GDP; almost tripling the National Debt by 2015. In practical terms, that would be like taking out a second and third mortgage on your house and using all of that money to throw a party for the people who approved the loans.
The African country of Zimbabwe is a glittering example of how debt-based populism makes the economy “get worse before it gets better”. President Mugabe ran his country’s debt to about 2.2 times higher than its GDP. He spent the money on his supporters, and then he inflated his currency in order to repay his creditors with worthless paper. As a result, his country now has 22 million percent inflation, a chronic famine, and massive death, exodus, and depopulation—right in the “breadbasket of Africa”. Citizens walk around with $10 Billion Bills in their pockets (ZWD Notes), which are not enough to purchase a meal. People who complain too loudly are shot. In sum, Zimbabwe is a wretched genocidal utopia of Marxist “Social Justice”. It never got better, it just got worse.
Obama’s new “Foundation” is simply Government Employment. Once Obama takes capital from the “wealthiest Americans” and uses it for interest payments to China, then more private enterprise will collapse. Obama will try to absorb the massive unemployment he creates by hiring millions of people into “shovel-ready” jobs for the government.
Cuba is a good example of what happens when Government employs everyone after it wipes out private business. The Castro Family Government employs about 90% of the work force in Cuba. Doctors and cab drivers earn about the same pay—which is about $20 per month. Only the ruling Socialist dictators earn much higher pay, because they perform the hard work of making sure that everyone else is “equal” to each other.
After 100 days of the Obama Telethon, I pause to note that his new “House”, “Rock”, and “Foundation” are a dangerous sham. I refuse to believe in a President who triples the debt accrued by all previous presidents combined…telling us that it will build a great economy somehow.
Hogwash!
History strongly suggests that this country will drown, not sail, in its new ocean of debt.
It is ironic that the President received an education from an elite college, then a degree from an elite law school, then lectured at a different law school, then worked as a “community organizer”, and then used inspiring oratory to overcome his own lack of experience, and so won his first term as President of Zimbabwe. Yes, President Mugabe won by a landslide in 1980 after delivering electrifying speeches to enormous rallies of supporters. They believed that he was incredibly smart, charismatic, and that he would surely rescue them from the injustices of prosperity. And he did.
Another irony is that some of the Christians, for whom Obama uses Bible words, can use one breath to pray for God to alleviate the suffering in Zimbabwe, and another breath to pray for Obama to succeed with Marx’s Social Justice here in America.
If you are a liberal reader then rejoice in knowing that my writing will get far worse before it gets any better.