If you think you understand the current economic crisis, you're wrong. Nobody really understands it, especially not
Timothy Geithner, our dunce Treasury Secretary whose brilliant stupidity
caused the stock market to plummet yesterday by more than 400 points.
If you want to get a better feeling for the current global malaise, however,
there are several books you must read:
Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand
1984, by George Orwell
Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll
There's also a concise little blog post worthy of your attention over at
Conservablogs. The title (which I love) is "
Newsweek: Celebrating America as a New, Socialist France," and is written by friend
Warner Todd Huston. The post is a primer into the world of
Orwellian New Speak, distorted presentations of reality
a la Carroll and Huxley, all mired in the shrugging shoulders of America in the here and now that Rand envisioned some 60 years ago. Rand had a crystal ball. She must have.
The Conservablogs piece skewers a Newsweek article for it's shrugging
shoudlers and
Carrollian-Orwellian-
Huxleyesque viewpoints on the economic crisis, the attempts by government (Big Brother) to save us all, and general stupidity:
Newsweek’s Jon Meacham and Evan Thomas are tired of all this talk of socialism. We need to stop talking about yesterday’s news, they say, and embrace the great new fact that America is already a socialist country. They chortle that America is just like France. Meacham and Thomas chide Sean Hannity for using socialism as a dirty word because it “seems strangely beside the point.” The pair is enthusiastic about our new American socialist society!
"Strangely beside the point" is straight out of Orwell's 1984. It is New Speak
pychobabble, stating precisely the opposite of truth, turning reality on its head. When
Hannity and other critics of the stimulus - or any Big Government spending orgy - use the term "socialism" to describe it, they are accurate. It is, in fact, socialism. Indeed, the term "stimulus" as applied to the "bailout" is Orwellian. Explain, if you will, how borrowing over a trillion dollars (don't forget the interest, folks) to "stimulate" the economy is not Orwellian. In fact, the "stimulus" will stunt any recovery.
The irony is that while America is moving toward European-style socialism, Europe itself is abandoning it. The Europeans have been experimenting with socialism in a serious way much longer than we have in the US. They have seen the future, and they didn't like it. Obama, Reid and
Pelosi, on the other hand, have seen the European past and want to jump into it. In a column titled "
Europe Retreats from Socialism," Joseph Farah points out that irony:
How ironic is it that the U.S. is embracing socialism at the very moment Europe and many other parts of the world are running away from it? Somebody needs to ask Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi about this. In the past five years, 33 countries, including 20 in socialist Europe, always held up as the example for a new American economic model by Democrats, have cut their personal income taxes, according to a study by KPMG, the giant accounting firm. In the past four years, 60 countries have cut their corporate income tax rates.
The politicians in the US seem oblivious to the fact that Europe is weening itself off of socialism, and that has allowed us to move in a direction that the Europeans know leads to disaster. And so, we got the "stimulus" package.
The "stimulus" is this: The government will pump hundreds of billions of dollars (your dollars, Taxpayer) into the economy, but in
dribs and drabs over the next 2-3 years. They will do this by (a) continuing to grab your money via income deduction on your paychecks, (b) borrowing hundreds of billions (which taxpayers will have to repay), (c) taking your income taxes and that borrowed money and redistributing it, and (d) claiming that this is the best course of action and chiding you to be patient. The more expedient and more fair way to stimulate the economy is to cut out the middlemen (Congress, Treasury, banks) and slash
everybody's payroll deductions immediately. Taxpayers would start to feel relief and stimulation on their next paycheck, which would be fatter, and most of them would go out and buy something. Things, lots of things.
In other words, we could slash
everyone's federal payroll deductions almost immediately. That would increase money in the people's pockets immediately. That would stimulate confidence and spending immediately, resulting in a rebound almost immediately. It's a non-socialist way to go. On the other hand, Washington has passed the "stimulus" legislation, ensuring the borrowing of hundreds of billions of dollars that taxpayers alive and yet to be born will be repaying for many decades. The money, an immediate total of just under 900 Billion dollars, will not be pumped into the economy quickly, but will literally take years to filter in. That's the socialist way to go, and that's the way Congress went.
So, no Newsweek, more socialistic meddling is not the solution. And Meacham and Thomas are as wrong as wrong could be. We don’t need to shrug our shoulders and sigh in resignation because socialism is already here. We need to destroy it and return our system to its capitalist base.
It's been said by pundits over the past few weeks that once Congress passes the stimulus package we'll be stuck with it forever. Well, they passed it. They passed it by voting on it. They could undo it with another vote, destroy the socialistic monster they've created, and return our system to its capitalist, less expensive, more fair base.
RELATED:
We Are All Socialists Now - Newsweek.com
Why American Capitalism Succeeds and European Socialism Fails
TheHill.com - Bush’s legacy: European socialism
The Complete Newspeak Dictionary from George Orwell's 1984
European Socialism: - Associated Content
European Socialism Doesn't Work - FOXNews
European Socialism and its Massive Failure
Europe retreats from socialism
CNB RSS Feed
There have been hundreds - perhaps thousands - of videos made about the failure of Obama's "hope and change." Here is one of the best I've seen, perhaps the best in terms of production quality and message.
This one (below) is titled "How's That Workin' Out For You?" and it asks a question that Sarah Palin made popular: How IS that hope and change working for ya? Not so good? The hook of the song's lyrics:
