While the media stopped to cover Michael Jackson's death, several tremors rocked the foundation of something that actually affects us all -- Obamanomics.
First, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who supported the President over his Republican rival, criticized Obama's spending, saying "we can't pay for it all." Powell said: "I'm concerned at the number of programs that are being presented, the bills associated with these programs and the additional government that will be needed to execute them. ... One of the cautions that has to be given to the President -- and I've talked to some of his people about this -- is that you can't have so many things on the table that you can't absorb it all."
Second, a few days ago, respected British economist Tim Congdon dusted off a 2003 paper -- written pre-Obama spending -- by the Federal Reserve's senior economist. It warned of the nation's growing debt and deficit, calculating their impact on long-term interest rates. The Fed's conclusion? "A percentage point increase in the projected deficit-to-GDP ratio raises the 10-year bond rate expected to prevail five years into the future by 20 to 40 basis points. ... Similarly, a percentage point increase in the projected debt-to-GDP ratio raises future interest rates by about 4 to 5 basis points." In plain English, this means, as Congdon puts it, a "debt explosion." Applying the 2003 paper's calculations and assumptions to our debt and deficit numbers under Obama, Congdon sees the "horrifying" consequences of bank bailouts and increased public spending.
Third, billionaire/Obama supporter Warren Buffett warned of impending inflation caused by increased government spending. "A country that continuously expands its debt as a percentage of GDP," he said, "and raises much of the money abroad to finance that, at some point, it's going to inflate its way out of the burden of that debt. ... Every country that's denominated its debt in its own currency and has found itself with uncomfortable amounts of debt relative to the rest of the world, in the end they inflate. And that becomes a tax on everybody that has fixed dollar investments."
Fourth, the Obama-supporting/George W. Bush-hating/billionaire benefactor of hyper-liberal MoveOn.org, George Soros, predicted that the administration's spending and borrowing will trigger inflation and higher interests rates. "As markets revive," he said, "fear of inflation will drive up interest rates, which will choke off recovery." (Emphasis added.)
Our country rushes ever closer to a Canadian/European economic model, where government spends a greater and greater percentage of the nation's income -- whether on education, "bailing out" private companies, "assisting" states that have imprudently run their affairs, supplying "free" health care and health insurance, or the creation of "green jobs" to battle "global warming."
President Obama and the Democratic Party's congressional supermajority represent nothing less than a grave and gathering threat to that which made America great -- free enterprise, competition, allowing people to keep as much of their own money as possible, and the assumption that people know better how and on what to spend their money than does government.
The Republicans -- who, remember, supported the first bailout, under Bush -- are only slightly better.
Continued... |