Profits! Hating Them When They’re High, And Panicking When They’re Low

by Austin Hill
Breaking news: some of America’s largest corporations have begun to report declining profits. For those that are offended by highly profitable corporations, this should be really great news.


But nobody is celebrating. In fact, the sagging profits reports are thought to be such a bad thing that some believe they sent the Dow sliding downward last week, for fear that a global recession has arrived.

If profits are such a terrible thing, why aren’t we relieved by their decline?

For the record, I have no idea whether or not a recession is eminent. And to the extent that economic activity is nearly impossible to predict with precision, nobody else knows either.

But regardless of whether the economy is moving up or down, Americans need to grapple with this “love-hate” attitude towards profitable enterprise. And let’s start with a couple of philosophical questions: Are profits always a good thing for a company to produce? And is it okay for one company to be really, really, profitable, even when other companies are not?

In some spheres of life – collegiate and professional athletic competitions, for example –Americans have no problem accepting the fact that with each match-up, some will succeed while others fail. Yet when it comes to business, success in producing profits is often seen as merely a necessary evil – and only acceptable if the profits aren’t “excessive.”

Part of the dilemma may well be that far too many Americans assume economics to be, as the term goes, a ‘zero-sum game.” Just as it is the case in many sporting events that one team wins and the other loses, so also it is assumed that if one individual or group is profitable, it necessarily causes somebody else’s unprofitability.

That, of course, is a false assumption. In our competitive free market economy, success with one enterprise often creates new markets in which other companies can succeed.

An easily understood example of this is the coffee house industry. In the 1980’s, Starbucks took the concept of the local coffee house where people meet and spend time together and drink beverages, and turned it in to a global business phenomena. And since the earliest beginnings of Starbucks, several other coffee house chains have been launched - Moxie Java, Tully’s Coffee, and Caribou Coffee to name a few - as an effort to capitalize on the burgeoning coffee house market. While today Starbucks remains the largest chain of its kind, these other newer and smaller companies have nonetheless benefited from Starbucks’ success, in as much as Starbucks essentially created the market for the modern-day coffee house in the first place.

But economic realities are one thing, and people’s perceptions are something different. And at present America is surrounded by an ever-present hostility towards profitable businesses – much of which emanates from the highest levels of our government.

Some of us saw this era of hostility coming. Back in 2008 while he was campaigning for the presidency, Then-Senator Obama made it a point to chastise American businesses nearly every time a robust earnings report was published. In the summer of that year, as an example, speaking to a stadium full of adoring followers, the President-to-be made it clear his disdain for the petroleum industry:

“First of all,” candidate Obama stated, “you’ve got oil companies making record profits…no… no companies in history have made the kind of profits the oil companies are makin’ right now…They..they…….one company, Exxon Mobil, made eleven billion dollars…billion, with a “b” ….last quarter….they made eleven billion dollars the quarter before that…makin’ money hand-over-fist…makin’ out like bandits…”

Imagine that! “Makin’ out like bandits” – that’s an amazing assessment of a successful business enterprise, suggesting that posting profits is tantamount to thievery. Of course at that moment in time, the early signs of a recession were appearing, and it was politically viable to send the message that “if we can’t all prosper right now, then none of us should prosper right now,” and his vitriol over the profitability of the Exxon Mobil Corporation played well with the crowd.

Yet Mr. Obama’s disdain for business “profits” has continued throughout his presidency. Fast forward to February 7th of 2011 when the President addressed an audience of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Speaking of the improving balance sheets that were emerging within many American companies at that time, President Obama stated: “The benefits can’t just translate into greater bonuses and profits for those at the top. They have to be shared by American workers, who need to know that expanding trade and opening markets will lift their standards of living, as well as your bottom line…”

Of course, we’re talking here about our Ivy League-graduate President. Surely he, of all people, understands that profits aren’t simply “shared” - they are “earned.” And surely he realizes that when a company is profitable, it’s not merely the C.E.O. that benefits (investors, employees, and customers benefit from profitability as well). Certainly the President of the United States understands these most basic concepts of free market enterprise.

But we never hear that from our President. Nor do we hear much praise at all for successful, profitable enterprise from anybody in our government. It’s usually anger and disgust when profits are good, and promises of intervention and “stimulus” when profits are bad.

It’s a very self-serving and destructive game that our politicians play. And they will keep on playing, until Americans come to terms with profits.


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Can America “Minimum Wage” Itself To Prosperity?

by Austin Hill
What happens when the U.S. Secretary of Labor visits a church in Charlotte? If an incident earlier this month is any indication, faulty political promises and destructive economic policies continue to spread.

It took place on April 3rd. Acting U.S. Labor Secretary Seth Harris made an appearance at a Baptist Church in North Carolina’s largest city, along with Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx. He was visiting to promote President Obama’s proposal of elevating the federal minimum wage requirement from the current $7.25 to $9.00 an hour.

Harris and Foxx gathered in a large room within a Baptist church building. They sat in a large circle with several “average” (which means “hand-picked, pre-screened, and pre-approved by the Labor Department”) Americans living in Charlotte who work at jobs that pay only minimum wage. As news microphones and cameras caught all the action, Harris facilitated a “discussion” with the minimum wage earning Charlottean’s, and explained how their lives would benefit from the President’s new proposed mandate.

Harris told the group participants that if the minimum wage requirement was raised to $9 an hour, a full-time worker at the current minimum wage would earn an extra $3,500 more per year. A total of 557,000 workers in North Carolina “would directly benefit from that proposal,” he said, noting that President Obama is seeking to “lift people out of poverty” by imposing this new proposed requirement.

It all sounded so good. But in reality, there were problems.

For one, mere laws don’t “lift people out of poverty” – genuine wealth creation does. Using the force of government to mandate that a business owner pays a worker a specific wage does not ensure that wealth is being created. On the contrary, such laws are coercive mechanisms of wealth redistribution, and they only ensure that an increasing amount of existing wealth is taken away from one individual or group and transferred to another.

History, even recent history over the course of our lifetimes, demonstrates this. While roughly half of the world’s population -about 3 billion people - live in measurable poverty today, the other roughly 3 billion are measurably “middle class,” and mostly facing upward mobility.

So what has happened to the more fortunate 3 billion? We have not been “minimum waged” to wealth. We’ve been fortunate to live in countries where we’ve been relatively free to privately own property and advance in the marketplace and amass wealth for ourselves.

The best examples of this have been post-World War II Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong, along with the increasingly liberated economies of China and India. Many Americans seem oblivious to this capitalistic, free market transformation that has taken place over the last few decades – surely if we were aware of this we wouldn’t have elected our current crop of politicians who are taking us in the exact opposite direction – but the transformation is nonetheless real.

Another problem with Harris’ promises is that they are based on the false assumptions that government bureaucrats understand the inner-workings of a business than a business owner does, and that government mandates always produce their desired outcomes. Can every small business in Charlotte – or anywhere else in the U.S. – afford to “absorb” the increased labor costs that will ensure with a higher minimum wage mandate? Harris is frequently asked about the un-intended consequences of his policy proposals, and will frequently say “I reject the notion that this kills jobs.”

Did you hear that business owners? He “rejects” it, so it is obviously not a concern. In fact, Harris promised the minimum wage earning Charlotteans that raising the minimum wage requirement will actually improve wages overall, and stimulate job creation.

Harris, by the way, took no time at all in Charlotte to meet with the business owners that would be impacted by the proposed wage mandate. When you have degrees from elite schools, and your work experience is based exclusively in the worlds of academia and law, and you wield the power of government (these characteristics describe both Harris and Barack Obama), it’s easy, apparently, to believe in the infallibility of your ideas. There’s no sense wasting time on the “non-believers.”

For now, Americans have put their collective trust in politicians who have promised to re-distribute us all to a better, “more fair” existence. Let us hope and pray that we see the error of our ways – before the country is irreparably damaged.

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Three Years On: Here’s Why Obamacare Has Become Irresistible

by Austin Hill
It has been federal law for three years. It has brought chaos to the labor markets. It has cost people their livelihoods and it is more unpopular than ever.

So why does “Obamacare” (officially known as the “Affordable Care Act”) remain so irresistible for so many of our fellow Americans? Because at its core Obamacare is not about health care, so much as it is about the redistribution of wealth, and for those who are on the receiving end of the redistribution the agenda is completely irresistible.

When the federal government doles-out cash, it’s difficult to say “no.” That’s why many of our nation’s top business consulting firms are cashing-in, as state government officials hire the consulting firms to figure out how to set up the new federal health care bureaucracies, complete with their own state-specific websites and call centers.

How difficult and costly could it be, do you suppose, to set up a website and a call center for the residents of one individual state? In the world of private enterprise, most small to midsize companies doing business within a specific region of the U.S. would be foolish to spend much more than a hundred thousand dollars for their customer service website and the infrastructure for a call center, and in many cases the project could be completed for much less.

But with Obamacare, the “customer service” element has become more of a “corporate welfare” element. Companies, careers, and personal fortunes are being made by people who are “” the states, as firms bill the individual states millions of taxpayer dollars for the website and call center set-ups (and the Obama administration frequently offers to reimburse the states for the set-up costs).

Take for example a company called Leavitt Partners, LLC. Founded by the former Republican Governor of Utah (and former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services) Michael Leavitt, the company describes itself as a “healthcare intelligence business,” and is focused solely on state-by-state Obamacare compliance (they have already completed Utah’s insurance exchange start-up).

We’re talking here about Michael Leavitt, the former Utah Governor who last year endorsed and campaigned on behalf of Mitt Romney, the presidential candidate who pledged to “end” Obamacare. Yes, that Michael Leavitt is making millions advising the states on how to comply with the monstrosity that his pal Mitt wanted to eliminate.

How much money is in play for these companies? Consider that last fall representatives from Leavitt’s company traveled north and proposed to build an exchange for their tiny nieghboring state of Idaho, a state with a population of less than 1.7 million people. Once the Leavitt representatives unveiled their proposed price tag to build an exchange - $70 million-an incredulous member of Idaho’s state insurance task force asked “does Governor Leavitt really believe that this is a good idea?”

Company associate Brett Graham replied with the nuanced explanation that “Governor Leavitt doesn’t like the feds dictating to the states,” however, the Governor also believes that the states should “stand inside the circle with the feds rather than stand outside of it”- which was an artful way of saying “yes, Governor Leavitt likes this and wants to get paid to show you how to do it.”

Leavitt’s proposal was not the most expensive that the sparsely populated Idaho received. The global accounting and consulting firm KPMG weighed-in with a price tag of $77 million, and when a state official asked what the residents of Idaho would get in return for such a large expenditure, KPMG representative Andrew Gottschalk was vague: “It’s hard to explain exactly what you get…It’s hardware, it’s software, there’s infrastructure, there’s people and staffing” he stated. “There would likely be a call center. It’s all kinds of things… there’s a lot of stuff….but it’s hard to be specific.”

States spending millions of taxpayer dollars, and receiving “all kinds of things” and “a lot of stuff” in return. That’s our present-day reality with Obamacare. Along with Leavitt Partners and KPMG, global consulting firms Maximus and Mercer are also cashing-in. These firms employ well educated, highly skilled professionals with JD’s, MBA’s, and advanced degrees in information systems and healthcare management, most of whom would undoubtedly reject the idea that they are welfare recipients. As the Maximus corporate website states, “we leverage our extensive experience and strong commitment to ethics to provide high quality services and solutions.”

Along with the Obamacare cash that’s flowing in to private consultants’ accounts, there’s the money that’s being handed-out to state and county governments under the auspice of Medicaid expansion. A key component of Obamacare was to have mandated that the individual states reduce eligibility requirements for Medicaid, and expand the number of participants in their respective programs. However, the United States Supreme Court overturned that component of the Obamacare law, so expansion of Medicaid is an elective choice for each of the states.

But not to worry, the President has made the expansion of the federal Medicaid welfare program irresistible, as the Administration is offering to pay 100% of the expansion costs for the first three years, for states that agree to the expansion this year. That’s why, for example, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who has refused to allow an Obamacare insurance exchange in his state, nonetheless agreed to the Medicaid expansion – when you can get the fed’s to pay for people’s “free” healthcare, that alleviates the state and county agencies from paying for it. It creates an addiction to federal spending, but if you’re in charge of a state or federal agency, it makes sense on some level.

This is the reality of Obamacare. It’s wildly unpopular for the masses, but irresistible for those on the receiving end of the money grab.

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What If Americans Treated Athletes The Way Our Politicians Treat Business Owners?

by Austin Hill
Are you ready for some football?

The Rose Bowl, the Fiesta Bowl, the BCS National Championship – and in a few weeks, the Super Bowl – are all coming soon to a television near you.

But what if we all displayed the same disdainful attitudes towards the accomplished athletes on our TV screen that Washington politicians display towards accomplished business owners and executives? And why is it that so many Americans celebrate the individual achievements of people who run fast, throw far, and jump high, but look with suspicion and anger at individuals who earn money creating valuable products and services?

It’s been almost six months since President Barack Obama delivered his now famous “Roanoke Rant,” an event that touched-off a brief debate about the merits of business. While campaigning for re-election last July 13th in Virginia, the President delivered a speech at the city’s “Fire Station #1” – which presumably meant that he had plenty of city government employees in the audience – and, in what seemed like an off-script moment, lambasted private business owners who were disagreeing with his tax hike proposals.

“If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help,” the President said of business owners. “There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you've got a business—you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen.”

After the speech, critics claimed that the President was displaying his preference for taxpayer funded enterprise – in this instance, government schools and transportation systems – over and above privately owned and operated enterprises. The Obama campaign shot-back with their own spin, claiming the President was merely arguing that private businesses are reliant on both the personal initiative and hard work of their owners, along with taxpayer funded public infrastructure. And days later a video popped-up on Youtube showing U.S. Senator-elect Elizabeth Warren in 2011 reciting the exact same rhetoric that President Obama had delivered.

The Obama campaign’s explanation would have been fine, if not for a couple of problems. For one, the President failed to acknowledge in the speech that businesses pay taxes – lots of taxes – and help fund public schools and transportation systems (it’s not just that “somebody” does these things on behalf of business owners). Likewise, the President never acknowledged the other half of his campaign staff’s “explanation.” Yes, it is true that all of us, including business owners, benefit from the government infrastructure that surrounds us. But the President said nothing in his speech about how much hard work and discipline and personal initiative are necessary to build a successful business enterprise.

The Roanoke Rant came and went, and it obviously didn’t hurt the President’s campaign. Yet, two days after the speech, the President welcomed the Baylor University women’s basketball team to the White House and congratulated the players on a stellar championship season.

Speaking before the media, with the “Lady Bears of Baylor” standing on a platform behind him, the President recognized the achievements of the coaching staff, and then stated that “If there’s one thing to describe this team…it was dominant. Last season, the Lady Bears scored more points than any team in women’s college basketball history…”

Never did the President suggest that being “dominant” was problematic for the basketball team members. Likewise the President didn’t suggest that being the scoring leader was a selfish or greedy type of pursuit, or that the points were accrued by some sort of corrupt means. The President made it clear that the Lady Bears were number one, and they deserved to be recognized as such.

But what if the President treated the college athletes with the same scrutiny with which he spoke of private business owners two days earlier? Might there have been some government-sponsored underpinning to the ladies’ success that the President could have noted? No doubt some of the Lady Bears are attending Baylor University with scholarship funds, some of which are probably generated from private donors, but others of which are no doubt provided by taxpayer funded agencies.

Yet President Obama didn’t single-out any financial aid recipients and tell them “you didn’t get here on your own,” nor did he bother to remind the players that they didn’t build the courts that they play on and that they didn’t design the basketball. Instead, President Obama chose not to malign the basketball players and coaches at all, but rather, gave them high praise for the success that they had each achieved for themselves.

So, is the President merely symptomatic of a society that celebrates individual achievement on the playing field, but resents it in the corner office or the local store? Or is Barack Obama enabling us to become more disdainful of business owners as he points out their obvious reliance of infrastructure, while ignoring the taxpayer funded benefits that sports heroes enjoy?

It’s probably a combination of both. The President has been preaching spite towards private enterprise since at least 2007, and it has paid-off nicely for him in two national elections. And most of us will not watch the accomplishments of our favorite football players and teams over the next few weeks and say “…but you didn’t do that…somebody else paid for the turf you’re playing on… somebody else designed your uniform….there was a good coach along the way that somebody else paid for..”

Americans must again realize that all the government infrastructure and taxpayer funded services amount to nothing, if individual initiative is absent. And until we stop making a mockery of marketplace merit, prosperity will remain elusive.


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In Washington, The Goal Is Control Of Private Wealth

By Austin Hill
Are the President and the Congress trying to send our economy in to a recession?

They’re probably not trying to, no. But with the current governing philosophy in Washington, a recession has become an acceptable means to a necessary end. And the intended “end” doesn’t necessarily entail economic growth and prosperity.

That sounds harsh, I know. But think it through with me. Because as the nation’s media has been obsessed about the “fiscal cliff” and whether or not the President and congressional Republicans will work out an agreement to forestall it, insufficient attention has been paid to how the President and congressional Democrats have augmented their agenda in the past couple of weeks. Journalist Ron Scherer was, as far as I can tell, the first to catch on, with a story he published at Yahoo! News and in the Christian Science Monitor.

Sherer noted in a November 30th news story that in the midst of the “fiscal cliff” tax rate negotiations, President Obama had added a little extra talking point to his campaign for higher taxes on “rich” people. While promoting his tax hike plan in Ohio that day, he slipped in a little “oh, and by the way let’s do another $255 billion stimulus package.” Scherer surmised that the President was proposing more stimulus spending as a means of “offsetting” the impact of his own proposed tax hikes.

But what, precisely, would need to be “offset,” if President Obama’s tax hike agenda prevails? The President just completed a successful re-election campaign claiming that raising taxes on “rich people” would be good for the economy, yet it now appears that he wants more stimulus spending as a means of saving our economy from his own economic policies. This would seem to be, at the very least, a tacit admission from the President that raising taxes on individual people – even those awful “rich people” among us – does, indeed cause a slowdown in economic activity, and may very well bring about a recession.

So what if officials in our government chose to pursue neither of these agendas? That is, what if we did not deploy governmental power to confiscate greater proportions of wealth from private individuals (that is, what if the government didn’t raise income taxes), and what if our government didn’t spend more tax dollars to “stimulate” the economy? If the tax hikes were eliminated, then perhaps the need for a stimulating “offset” would be eliminated, as well.

That’s a plausible idea, if the country’s agenda is economic growth and prosperity. But that is not the agenda of President Obama and his party. By taking more money away from “rich”people and by spending more money on “stimulus projects,” the President is able to control more wealth that is currently in possession of private individuals, and then re-distribute that wealth to people whom he believes are deserving of it and spend it on things that are important to him.

Shortly after the President began his new stimulus push, former Democratic National Committee Chairman (and former presidential candidate) Howard Dean made some extraordinary remarks of his own about the economy. In an interview at MSNBC, Dean stated that he wants the across-the-board income tax increases entailed in the “fiscal cliff” scenario, and welcomed the resulting outcome. “Will it cause a problem?” he asked rhetorically. “Yes. There will be a short recession, and it will be painful.” Yet despite this “painful recession” that Dean believes will ensue, he nonetheless expressed exuberance for the higher tax rates and the cuts in military spending that will result as well.

That was an amazing admission. For Dean, it seems that a recession is an acceptable means to the intended end: government control of private wealth. In this scenario, it doesn’t matter so much that working individuals and families often lose jobs, careers, and homes in recessions. Those are unfortunate things, sure, but when the goal is government control of the economy, personal prosperity ceases to be a priority.

If this sounds far too conspiratorial, consider the report last week about the President’s squabble with non-profit charities. In a December 13th news story, the Washington Post reported that the Obama Administration was leveling a threat to the leaders of high-profile charity groups: either publicly support the President’s tax hike plan, or face the possibility that the President will seek to reduce tax deductions for charitable contributions.

We’re talking here about long-standing, reputable groups like the American Red Cross, United Way, the Salvation Army, and World Vision. And yes, if charitable donors couldn’t deduct the amount they donate from their income taxes, they probably wouldn’t donate as much – which would hurt charitable groups. But again, the goal of the Administration is controlling private wealth, and the prosperity of private individuals and organizations is not a priority.

A majority of Americans seem oblivious to the President’s economic control agenda in Washington -either that, or they’re comfortable with it. Multiple polls show the President is regarded as more trustworthy on economic issues than his political opponents in Congress are right now. And pollster Scott Rasmussen of Rasmussen Reports recently found that only 54% of Americans still believe that economic prosperity is more important than economic “fairness” (“fairness” being the promise of politicians who seek to control private wealth and re-distribute it).

Will America return to a pathway of prosperity? Or have we resigned ourselves to the President’s will for our lives?


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Obama Lied About Date Of Bin Laden’s Killing

As reported by Godfather Politics (12/07/12)
 On May 2, 2011, in a 9th Circuit courtroom in Pasadena, California, C-SPAN, CBS and ABC were all covering a hearing in the most significant eligibility lawsuit filed against Barack Hussein Obama, brought by 2008 presidential candidate Alan Keyes, almost two dozen state representatives and 30 members of the military.

Yet somehow, the story never made it to air and was ignored by the major media.

 That was because the media were busy trumpeting what happened the day before, when the Obama Administration had announced that Osama bin Laden had been killed by a team of SEALs under the order of the president.

But according to emails obtained by the Western Center for Journalism, bin Laden had been killed on April 28 or earlier, not May 1 as the president himself told the nation.

According to the emails, obtained from the Department of Defense under the Freedom of Information Act, Rear Adm. Samuel Perez sent a message on April 29 at 4:58 a.m. asking about special preparations for bin Laden’s funeral.

Email messages regarding the burial at sea go back to the morning of April 28, leading to the logical conclusion that bin Laden was killed no later than early in the morning of April 28, quite possibly before then.

When President Obama announced the death of bin Laden on May 1, he referred to the killing as being “today” several times.

The actual announcement was made late at night so that the media couldn’t help but carry coverage of it into the next day.

The WCJ asks the perfectly reasonable question of whether the bin Laden announcement was held until the night of May 1 so as to bury the story about the eligibility hearing on the morning of May 2?

Based on everything we know about this Administration, it’s almost a guaranteed yes. The eligibility story has dogged Obama since before his first election.

He has successfully fought it in the courts and gotten it buried in the media, which has tossed the whole idea in the permanent circular file.

But the hearing on May 2 was different in that it was brought by Keyes, a presidential candidate with definite legal standing, and been signed on to by so many lawmakers and members of the military. That suit carried a weight that most of the others did not.

Also, the fact that it was being heard in Pasadena, a stone’s throw from Burbank, the West Coast’s broadcast capital, must have been seen by Obama’s minions as boding ill for the Man Who Would Be King.

So the Administration did what this Administration does best and manipulated the willing dupes in the media.

The lawsuit was eventually dismissed by the court, which ruled that no one had standing after the 2008 election except a candidate, but since Keyes wasn’t running again, he didn’t count. There’s a reason it’s called the 9th Circus Court, after all.

I’m tempted to go further even than the WCJ and suggest that not just the timing of the announcement, but the killing of bin Laden itself was staged to distract from the hearing.

It’s known from various sources that President Obama had aborted previous attempts at getting bin Laden, probably under the influence of his adviser Valerie Jarrett, who is Morgan Le Fey to his Mordred.

It’s also known that Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, with help from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, was the real mover behind the mission to get bin Laden and that Obama was supposedly out of the loop until they came and got him off the golf course.

However it really went down, it’s obvious the Administration knew where to find bin Laden, it was simply a question of when. In other words, the killing of bin Laden was just a card in Obama’s sleeve to be played if things ever got desperate enough.

Obama’s flunkies would have obviously been aware of the upcoming hearing weeks, if not months, in advance, so someone in the Administration could very easily have decided it was time to play the bin Laden card.

Simply make the call, send in the SEALs, get the body on ice if need be, stage a funeral, redact some time stamps and make the big announcement when it will have maximum effect. As a bonus, Obama gets to brag in his re-election campaign that he got the bad guy.

That there is information about bin Laden’s death and burial at sea being withheld is clear. The Department of Defense claims the USS Carl Vinson has no records of bin Laden’s funeral. However, Rear Adm. Charles Gaouette in an email refers to “the paucity of documentary evidence in our possession,” meaning there is some sort of record. Gaouette, by the way, has since been relieved of command for unexplained reasons.

But don’t worry about seeing any of this in the media. There are new, cooked jobless numbers out today, and there are Santa stories to cover.

Read more: http://godfatherpolitics.com/8446/obama-lied-about-date-of-bin-ladens-killing-distraction-from-eligibility-hearing/#ixzz2EXAjGVxo


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The “Best Revenge” And The Worst Of Economies

by Austin Hill
It’s “game on” for the politics of retaliation.

While campaigning in the swing state of Ohio, President Obama’s supporters began to boo last Friday when he uttered the name “Mitt Romney.”

“No, no, no,” the President shouted, “don’t boo. Vote. Voting is the best revenge…”

Those who support the President’s re-election are to seek revenge on others. That’s quite a directive from the President of the United States, and it is quite a departure from the candidate of four years ago who promised to unite all Americans in the pursuit of higher purposes.

But it is nonetheless an example of that for which President Obama has become known -turning American against American. It’s more than an “our campaign versus theirs” remark. The implied message is that I will be made to feel better, if you are sufficiently maligned and impugned.

In particular it is meant to convey that if my government punishes you by taking away more of your money, then my life will somehow become more wonderful. It is a false premise that has emanated throughout Mr. Obama’s campaign for re-election and throughout his nearly four years of policies as well.

Reaction this weekend to the President’s “revenge” admonition was eerily similar to that which followed his famous “you didn’t build that” vitriol aimed at business owners last spring. Romney and Ryan made it a talking point from the stump, while the President’s surrogates went in to the usual “he was taken out of context” and “what he really meant was” explanations.

But consider how the President’s propensity for “revenge” on certain categories of Americans is at the epicenter of his economic ideas and rhetoric. Even back four years ago when he was promising to “bring us all together,” candidate Obama nonetheless consistently expressed disdain - and yes, an attitude of revenge – towards successful business enterprises.

Speaking to a stadium full of adoring followers in August of that year, then-Senator Obama went-off with a tirade about how American oil companies were making too much money! As the crowd cheered him on, he said, in part:

“…You’ve got oil companies making record profits…no… no companies in history have made the kind of profits the oil companies are makin’ right now…they..they…….one company, Exxon Mobil, made eleven billion dollars…billion, with a “b” ….last quarter….they made eleven billion dollars the quarter before that…makin’ money hand-over-fist…makin’ out like bandits…”

From there, Senator Obama went on to introduce his new “energy policy.” He wanted to raise taxes on oil companies (because, obviously, it is unfair if a company is “too profitable”), and use that “extra” tax revenue to give “working Americans” a thousand-dollar voucher that they could use to make gasoline purchases.

Senator Obama made no mention of the untold numbers of shareholders who invest their money in oil companies, nor any reference to the men and women who invest their talents and efforts into oil companies. And he certainly made no reference to fact that that oil companies actually provide us all with an essential product. No, Barack Obama is not given to such essential truths. Americans in 2008 were feeling fearful about the economy, and oil companies were enjoying success all at the same time – it was an opportunity to gin-up the desire for “revenge” that couldn’t be ignored.

Fast-forward to 2011. After signing landmark bills that sought “reforms” (read “revenge”) on banks, credit card companies, and – of course- health care providers, President Obama was feeling the heat over an economy that was still was not producing the much-needed job growth that had been promised. And while much of the business community had at that point refrained from admitting that we had a problem in Washington, DC, Las Vegas-based hotelier Steve Wynn finally broke the silence.

In July of that year, Wynn stated on a corporate conference call with his “Wynn Resorts” corporation what millions of us knew in our hearts.: “… This administration is the greatest wet blanket to business, and progress and job creation in my lifetime…my customers… are frightened of this administration… Everybody complains about how much money is on the side in America…those of us who have business opportunities and the capital to do it are going to sit in fear of the President. And a lot of people don't want to say that. They'll say, God, don't be attacking Obama. Well, this is Obama's deal and it's Obama that's responsible for this fear in America…”

After acknowledging the Obama-driven “fear” among America’s entrepreneurs and investors, Wynn further states that “the guy (President Obama) keeps making speeches about redistribution and maybe we ought to do something to businesses that don't invest, they’re holding too much money. We haven't heard that kind of talk except from pure socialists. Everybody's afraid of the government and there's no need soft peddling it…It is the truth. And that's true of Democratic businessman and Republican businessman, and I am a Democratic businessman… And I'm telling you that the business community in this country is frightened to death of the weird political philosophy of the President of the United States… until he's gone, everybody's going to be sitting on their thumbs…”

And here we are, two days away from another election. Those with the means of investing and growing the economy are indeed “on the sidelines,” shielding themselves from the President’s “revenge,” and we all are suffering as a consequence.


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Entrepreneurs Weigh-In: What Do We Need Over The Next Four Years?

by Austin Hill

“…What the hell is he doing asking for another four years?”

Governor Chris Christie (R-New Jersey) was speaking on behalf of Mitt Romney in Virginia last week. He was talking about, and to, Barack Obama. “…If you don’t think you can change Washington from inside the White House, let’s give you the plane ticket back to Chicago you’ve earned.” With President Obama and his challenger running so close – and with so many states in-play – fiery rhetoric from the campaign trail is to be expected.

Yet Governor Christie raises a legitimate question. Besides the obvious reasons – first term Presidents are eligible to run for a second term (and most of them to), and President Obama thinks he is better suited to be President than Mitt Romney –what, really, is another four years of Barack Obama supposed to be about?

Americans who are the least bit interested in anything remotely resembling economic recovery and prosperity – yes, even Democrat Americans – should take a look at the facts. The evidence is overwhelming that President Obama’s policies over the last three and a half years are stifling our economy now, and will likely send us in to a slowdown in 2013.

That’s not mere partisan political rhetoric. Last week Reuters business news reported that Americans will face a “tougher 2013,” economically speaking, and they identified two of President Obama’s policies as the direct reason for the added difficulty.

For one, payroll taxes are set to rise on January 1. President Obama agreed to a temporary payroll tax cut back in 2009, but he insists that it needs to be raised again, and has insisted that he’ll let this lower payroll tax rate expire at the end of this year. According to the analysis reported by Reuters, this will take an estimated $125 billion out of our private sector economy, and will likely mean less consumer spending, less profitability for businesses, and a lower GDP.

And then there’s Obamacare. The President himself isn’t even trying any longer to pretend that his “health reform” law isn’t a tax, and thoughtful analysts in the world of business news can’t pretend either. According to Reuters, the new taxes on healthcare providers, insurance companies, and employers that provide health insurance to their workers will cause healthcare costs to shoot up nearly 7% in 2013 alone. This, combined with already stagnant wages, and the estimated $125 billion taken out of private household budgets because of the President’s payroll tax increase, all add up to more economic hardship for middle and lower income Americans.

In the same week, CNN Money published a report entitled “Entrepreneurship Is Weaker Than Ever.” The report noted that across the country, local government regulations are damaging small businesses and new start-ups. But it also claimed that “uncertainty in the market” – fears of rising taxes, IRS agents penalizing individuals and businesses for alleged Obamacare violations, and the lack of investment capital – were creating huge disincentives for would-be business owners to jump in.

And then there was The Atlantic, and Yahoo! Finance, that both jointly published an in-depth article with a striking title: “What Kills Small Business? Let’s Ask Them.”

The article states that “69 percent of small business owners and managers say that complicated government regulations are ‘major impediments; to the creation of new jobs.” The article also provided this analysis:

“When over two-thirds of job creators tell us how to create jobs in an economy that desperately needs them, candidates and elected officials should not only listen, they should also tell us precisely where they stand on these ideas. How government regulates commerce -- and not just whether government regulates commerce -- should be a major issue in this election. It would tell us a lot about how the candidates, if elected, would make critical day-to-day decisions that shape law, regulation, and, ultimately, the economy.”

These are some powerful words. And they are not emanating from “conservative” media outlets – if The Atlantic has any ideological leanings, it’s generally regarded as “left of center.” And while Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer is well known for her unquestioning support of President Obama and the Democrat Party, even the business news division of her media content operation can’t ignore that the President that she has helped to bankroll is doing serious damage to the economy (that’s how bad things have become).

Back in January of 2011 (after the President’s self-described “shellacking” at the polls in November of 2010), President Obama spoke at a General Electric plant in Schenectady, NY and tried to convey that he really does support free market enterprise, stating that “we’re going back to Thomas Edison’s principles… We’re going to build stuff and invent stuff…” The sad irony was that the speech was made days before the Obama Administration officially outlawed one of Thomas Edison’s greatest inventions, the incandescent light bulb.

Now, as he campaigns for re-election, the President clings to his “Forward” and “We can’t go back” phrases, and reminds us that he killed Osama bin Laden. Yet the stifling of our economy from the Obama Administration’s legacy of threats and fees and fines and taxes and bans on businesses, is undeniable.

Entrepreneurs and business owners are crying-out to be saved from the Obama oppression. Do American voters care?

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Get A Grip: Americans Must Demand Better Government In November And Beyond

by Austin Hill
Barack Obama is beating Mitt Romney.

Wait- Romney and Obama are tied in Pennsylvania.

And how about all those bungled calls from the NFL fill-in refs?

Americans are seriously pre-occupied as we enter the fourth quarter of 2012. Obsessions about the football season and “Dancing with The Stars” are a pleasant diversion from our present hardship and gloomy future, and frustrations over the logic-defying presidential polls makes for interesting talk show fodder.

But after the election – and after the close of 2012 – Americans will need to grapple with myriad problems in our government. Whoever wins the White House will face an avalanche of trouble in the months ahead, and the ways in which these problems are addressed will reverberate for generations.

Americans must begin to see through the rhetoric of politicians and the slant and soundbytes of the media, and demand better government from those elected to serve. The “pass the bill and then figure out what’s in it” approach is unacceptable. So let’s start with our “get a grip” agenda with this: Americans must sober-up about our economic and fiscal condition.

At present it would seem that we’re taking the upcoming election about as seriously as a football game. Team Obama has the home field advantage, while Romney and company are the visitors trying to upset Obama at his homecoming. The make-up of the Congress will then round-out each team’s roster, but the “players” are thought to be all essentially the same.

Yet America is in serious trouble. Private industry is suffering shell shock from the flurry of demands and restrictions placed upon it in the last three years, most of which have stemmed from environmental constraints, so-called “banking reform,” mortgage restrictions, and Obamacare. Our currency is being debased by the minute, as our government’s debt exceeds 70% of our GDP and the Federal Reserve continues to print money while keeping interest rates artificially low.

President Obama is committed to making matters worse- he promises higher taxes and more government spending, and has offered no vision for undoing the disastrous and damaging components of Obamacare. Mr. Romney is moving in the correct direction by proposing an expansion of free trade and modest spending cuts, but does not (and in political terms perhaps cannot) come close to where we must go.

So Americans must decide – do we want prosperity and opportunity for the long-term, or do we want the short-term yet unsustainable pleasure of politicians satiating our petty jealousies towards “rich people” and dolling-out lots of free goodies? If it’s the former we want, then we’ll have to seriously change some things: freeze income tax rates where they are; cut corporate taxes; raise the Social Security eligibility age to 72 (for, say, American workers age 45 and younger) and allow for private investment of portions one’s withholdings; gut Obamacare and start over; and cut taxes on small businesses and restrictions on small business lending.

And here’s another agenda item: America must begin utilizing its own resources again. While the currencies of Europe, Japan and the U.S. have fallen in to varying levels of disrepute over the past four years, the dollars of Canada, New Zealand, and Australia have remained relatively strong. And these three countries share something else in common as well- they all harvest and export their own natural resources.

Canada exports oil and natural gas. Australia exports iron ore. New Zealand uses its land to produce and export food, wood products and heavy machinery. Americans must decide – do we want to be more prosperous and secure, or do we want to feel like we’re doing something nice for plant and animal life by not using our natural resources?

A radical environmental agenda has co-opted the national dialog to the point that we only talk about drilling and refining when gasoline surpasses four dollars a gallon. And as for manufacturing and farming – plenty of us blindly accept the notion that these endeavors do nothing but rape and pillage the earth and consume “too much” energy (if you don’t believe this, ask a farmer in California). It’s time to utilize our resources and unshackle our farmers and manufacturers – and to do this we have to demand change with our government.

And agenda item number three: Americans must respect private enterprise as the necessary engine of our sustenance, instead of allowing it to be co-opted for political agendas. President Obama’s “renewable energy” agenda sounds noble and makes people feel good. But after running up untold billions of dollars in debt with the financing of “green energy” companies (over 80% of which were headed-up by Obama campaign donors), there has been no such energy produced and a majority of these companies have already lapsed into bankruptcy. What masquerades as the “green energy industry” is nothing more than debt for future generations spent financing the President’s environmental politics of today.

A similar phenomenon took hold last decade. Despite President Bush’s attempts to slow things down, both Republican and Democrat leadership in the Congress enabled the cheap credit, lax lending, and “affordable housing” policies that supposedly drove “home ownership” to an all time high (it’s hard to say no when “everybody gets a house”). It made the politicians popular in the short-run, but it drove us to the brink when the bubble burst. Government co-opted the real estate and lending industries, and it failed us in painful ways.

We are not helpless victims of politicians. But will we demand better?

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CH. 1: A Childhood Of Privilege, Not Hardship

The following is a reprint from a Special Report published by the Washington Examiner dated September 20, 2012.  A link to the Washington Examiner maybe found in our 'Links' Listings.

by Richard Pollock, Examiner staff writer.
Obama and his bride Michelle Robinson, a fellow Harvard Law School graduate, on their wedding day, Oct. 3, 1992, in Chicago. (Associated Press) First lady Michelle Obama told the Democratic National Convention that "Barack and I were both raised by families who didn't have much in the way of money or material possessions."

It is a claim the president has repeated in his books, on the speech-making circuit and in countless media interviews. By his account, he grew up in a broken home with a single mom, struggled for years as a child in an impoverished Third World country and then was raised by his grandparents in difficult circumstances.

The facts aren't nearly so clear-cut.

Ann Dunham was just 18 years old when she gave birth to Obama. She was a freshman at the University of Hawaii. His Kenyan father, Barack Hussein Obama Sr., was a few years older than Ann. They were married against family wishes.

Obama Sr. does not appear to have been welcoming or compassionate toward his new wife or son. It later turned out that he was secretly married to a Kenyan woman back home at the same time he fathered the young Obama.

He abandoned Obama Jr.'s mother when the boy was 1. In 1964, Dunham filed for a divorce that was not contested. Her parents helped to raise the young Obama.

Obama's mother met her second husband, an Indonesian named Lolo Soetoro, while working at the East-West Center in Hawaii. They married, and in 1967, the young Obama, then known as Barry Soetoro, traveled to Indonesia with his mother when the Indonesian government recalled his stepfather.

In Indonesia, the family's circumstances improved dramatically. According to Obama in his autobiography "Dreams from My Father," Lolo's brother-in-law was "making millions as a high official in the national oil company." It was through this brother-in-law that Obama's stepfather got a coveted job as a government relations officer with the Union Oil Co.

The family then moved to Menteng, then and now the most exclusive neighborhood of Jakarta, where bureaucrats, diplomats and economic elites reside.

A popular Indonesia travel site describes Menteng: "Designed by the Dutch Colonial Government in 1920s, Menteng still retains its graceful existence with its beautiful parks, cozy street cafes and luxurious housing complexes."\

In 1971, his mother sent young Obama back to Hawaii, where his grandmother, Madelyn, known as Toots, would become one of the first female vice presidents of a Honolulu bank. His grandfather was in sales.

Obama's grandparents moved the same year into Punahou Circle Apartments, a sleek new 10-story apartment building just five blocks from the private Punahou School, which Obama would attend from 1971 to 1979.

Obama explains in "Dreams from My Father" that his admission to Punahou began "the start of something grand, an elevation in the family status that they took great pains to let everyone know."

To his credit, Obama did not downplay Punahou's upscale status, noting in his autobiography that it "had grown into a prestigious prep school, an incubator for island elites. Its reputation had helped sway my mother in her decision to send me back to the States."

Obama also admitted in the book that his grandfather pulled strings to get him into the school. "There was a long waiting list, and I was considered only because of the intervention of Gramps's boss, who was an alumnus."

The school still features a lush hillside campus overlooking the Waikiki skyline and the Pacific Ocean. It was one of the most expensive schools on the island, and both Obama and his half sister Maya Soetoro-Ng received scholarships.

While the Dunhams were not among the wealthiest families on the island, he nevertheless studied and socialized with the children of the social and financial elite. Obama has said he didn't fit in at the school. But that's not how other Hawaiians remember it.

Associated Press writer Sudhin Thanawala reported from Honolulu in 2008 that "classmates and teachers say Obama blended in well. He served on the editorial board of the school's literary magazine, played varsity basketball and sang in the choir. He went on the occasional date."

In his recent book "Barack Obama: The Story," Washington Post reporter David Maraniss said the future chief executive often smoked marijuana with prep school friends, rolling up the car windows to seek "total absorption," or "TA." They called themselves the "Choom Gang."

Edward Shanahan, a retired newspaper journalist who now edits downstreet.net and makes no effort to conceal his admiration for Obama, retraced his Hawaii years shortly after the president was elected.

Shanahan wrote that Obama lived in a "well-off neighborhood near the University of Hawaii where Barry, as he was known, resided in a comfortable home with his mother and her parents before she took him to Indonesia."

Sanahan said "our tour ended up on the lush, exquisitely maintained and altogether inviting campus of Punahou School, which we can imagine was a place of great comfort for Obama."

Tellingly, Obama has never lived in a black neighborhood. Maraniss reported in his book that when leftist activist Jerry Kellman interviewed Obama for a community organizing job in Chicago, he asked Obama how he felt about living and working in the black community for the first time in his life.

Obama accepted the job but chose not to live among those he would be organizing. Instead, he commuted 90 minutes each way daily from his apartment in Chicago's famous Hyde Park to the Altgeld Gardens housing project where he worked.

It was an early instance of Obama presenting himself one way while acting in quite a different way.
Next: Chapter 2: The myth of the rock-star professor


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UMWA: Stupid Is As Stupid Does

During his campaigning in 2008, Barack Obama promised, on several occasions, “I will bankrupt the coal industry “.

In spite of that promise, the president of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) Cecil E. Roberts announced on May 21, 2008 that his organization is endorsing Barack Obama for president. Roberts then added, “He understands and will fight for the needs our members have today and the hopes our members have for a secure future for themselves and their families.”

Obama has taken the steps needed to fulfill that promise. All coal burning power plants are scheduled for shutdown and the supporting mines are being shuttered.

Yet, in several recent appearances Roberts has addressed the issue as if it were a rogue EPA and not Obama that is responsible for the dismantling of the coal industry.

A couple of weeks ago it was announced that the United Mine Workers of America had decided not to endorse either Obama/Biden or Romney/Ryan.

Mike Caputo stated, “As of right now, we have elected to stay out of this election.” Then added,
“Our members right now have indicated to stay out of this race, and that’s why we’ve done that.... I don’t think, quite frankly, that coalfield folks are crazy about either candidate."

(Note: Mike Caputo is an UMWA official and a Democratic member of the West Virginia House of Delegates.)

Stay out of the race? Endorse no one? How stupid can they get?

Full disclosure:
The old WachDog grew up (at least my first 23 years) in the coalfields of WV. My Grandfather was a miner (WV and IL); my father was a mining engineer and superintendent, I spent four summers working at assorted mining jobs. And there are still many relatives and friends working in mines.

I was for a brief time a member of the UMWA. At that time, John L. Lewis, a devout communist, was the president. In the fifty years since, the UMWA has had a long history of ho-hum presidents. It would appear that Cecil E. Roberts is no exception!

The rank and file members are not stupid people. You cannot function in a modern mine without a considerable degree of intelligence. So why do these otherwise smart people blindly follow their idiot leadership down the road to oblivion? I could not answer that question in the 1950’s and I can’t answer it now. But I can tell you that if you have a choice between someone that you don't like because he is not a democrat and someone that is is devoted to wiping out your job, your community, and your families future, you want to make damn certain that the bastard is defeated.

To insure that Obama is defeated, you must support Romney! 

The choice is yours, defy your union handlers and vote to save your job or spend the rest of your life dreaming of what might have been.          -- WD

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Job Creation Nation: America Faces Harsh Realities In 2013

by Austin Hill
The political conventions have passed, the August jobs report is out, and many Americans are said to be “giving up hope.”

So how can we jumpstart our greatest engine of economic growth – the American small business market – and get our economy growing again?

Regardless of which presidential candidate wins this November, in 2013 Americans will have to focus on saving, and expanding, the small business marketplace. The sector of our economy that makes up nearly 60% of the entire American private sector workforce, and creates between 60 and 80% of all new jobs, has been under attack over the past few years by politicians who have created lots of bad laws.

And if Americans are serious about expanding actual employment (rather than merely expanding government welfare and entitlement programs), then we will have to make better choices at the ballot box, and hold our elected leaders responsible for making serious changes. To start, let’s consider consider this harsh reality: the so-called “fiscal cliff” is real, and President Obama’s proposed solution to it is potentially lethal.

Under current federal law, both income tax rates and Social Security tax rates are set to rise dramatically on January 1st of 2013. Along with these tax increases, a dramatic reduction in government services will take hold at the same time.

This confluence of private citizens having more of their money taken away (higher taxes), and a reduction of government services (which means that private citizens will have to fill the gap and spend more of their own money) is expected to trigger a new recession next year. As a means of preventing a “double dip,” both Republicans and Democrats in the Congress have proposed that taxation rates be frozen where they are at, and held steady in 2013.

But President Obama has insisted that taxes should be raised on so-called “rich people” next year, and has refused to do what most economists and many members of his party have said is the one thing that could save us from another downturn.

And with the President polling as well as he is, it seems apparent that millions of Americans are far more excited about his “make the rich pay” rhetoric than they are aware of the consequences of his proposals. Obama supporters may get their wish in November, but it will come at a painful price – a price that all of us will pay.

And here’s another harsh reality: Americans need to get comfortable with other people’s financial successes. Since the early days of his first presidential campaign in 2007, Barack Obama has been pouring fuel on the fires of resentment and envy towards the wealthy. As a political strategy this has worked well for the President, but as government policy this has been bad for all of us.

The President’s tax-hike push is a perfect example, as many of America’s small businesses are set-up under the I.R.S. code as “Sub-chapter S” corporations. These are businesses wherein the company profits are reported to the I.R.S. directly as personal income by the business owners and are subject to personal income tax rates – and many of these business owners are being targeted by President Obama for an income tax-hike.

If the President gets his wish, and the government begins confiscating more money from the owners of Sub-chapter S corporations, by definition this leaves less money in these corporations for hiring and expansion. Thus Americans have a choice to make – do we want to employ our President for another four years so he can satiate the hatred some of us have towards “the rich” and take away more of their money? Or would we like private business owners to have money available to employ more of us? From the way things appear right now, we probably can’t do both.

And here’s harsh reality number three: Americans have to stop Obamacare from wiping-out small businesses. A central feature of this law is the mandate that businesses provide healthcare insurance to their workers. It sounds great – workers will now be “guaranteed” health insurance – but once again, the “make somebody else pay” approach is heaping more weight on the shoulders of small business owners.

Americans must decide how serious they are about job creation – even if it means that some jobs won’t include health benefits. If we honestly want employers to employ more, we must force the Congress and the President to fix this devastating component of Obamacare next year.

And here’s yet another harsh reality: Americans must stop making small businesses a scapegoat on illegal immigration. Roughly two-thirds of Americans want our national borders secured and a coherent immigration policy, yet for over a decade Washington has refused to do the former and has scarcely attempted the latter.

Amid the frustration, businesses have become the target of Americans’ wrath. If business owners would simply quit hiring illegals -so the reasoning goes -the illegals would go away.

Mitt Romney has pledged that, if elected, he will seek to require American employers and workers to register with the federal government’s “e-verify” website, as a means of policing the problem. But this adds even more bureaucratic burdens to small business owners, and ignores our failed immigration policies and un-secured borders.

Do we want politicians who merely tell us what we want to hear? Or do we want leaders in our government who can actually enable businesses to grow? Americans must become more discerning-and face some harsh realities.
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The Quest For A Reason To Re-Elect The President

by Austin Hill
Have you heard the latest from the Obama re-election team?

Mitt Romney doesn’t have enough of his money taken from him in taxes. Paul Ryan wants to give rich people a tax “break.” Mitt Romney cut jobs when he was an executive at a private equity firm. Paul Ryan wants to cut school lunches for needy children.

You’ve probably seen and heard it all before. Romney and Ryan are scary, “extreme,” and out of touch, according to Team Obama. The President, Vice President, and all their operatives and surrogates are committed to getting the word out.

But while the President and his friends are adept at making rhetorical attacks on Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, it’s an infrequent occurrence when they offer any reasons why the President should be re-elected. So what, really, is the case for an Obama re-election victory? We know why the President dislikes the Romney-Ryan ticket (and Republicans, generally). But why do we need another four years of Barack Obama as our President? “Because Mitt Romney is terrible,” seems to be the implied answer.

Try searching for remarks from the President about what he intends to do in a second term, and you won’t find much. This is because he hasn’t said much on the topic. Most of the President’s comments these days are disparaging remarks about Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan and not about his agenda - although he did note in an Associated Press interview on August 25th that if he is elected to a second term, he believes there are Republicans in the House and Senate who will compromise and work with him to “get things done” for the country.

I did, however, receive a recent email update from the Obama campaign, a portion of which read like this: “President Obama believes the only way to create an economy built to last is to build it from the middle out and not from the top down. His economic plan is to restore middle-class security by paying down our debt in a balanced way that ensures everyone pays their fair share. Yet the President also wants to still invest in things we need to create jobs and grow our economy over the long term, things like education, energy, innovation, and infrastructure.”

This little blurb should raise some big questions. First, we should all ask “who is seeking a ‘top-down’ approach to the economy?” The answer, of course, is the President himself.

Within less than two years of taking office, President Obama successfully put in to place a system of tremendous governmental control over the otherwise private economy. By the middle of 2010, the President had become a de-facto C.E.O. over huge chunks of the economy, with the power to hire and fire executives, establish compensation limits for executive management, and to determine what products and services are produced. Insurance companies, car manufacturers, lending institutions and energy producers – President Obama has successfully forced his will upon them all.

So has all this governmental control created an economy that is “built to last?” We should also ask the Obama campaign emailers “how does the extra $6 trillion in U.S. government debt (roughly the amount of federal debt increase since the President’s first day in office) help pay down the debt?” And what about the $813 billion stimulus bill of 2009 – that was supposed to be an “investment” in innovation, infrastructure and education – where did that money go? Wasn’t that supposed to be “invested” in important things? And what happened to “shovel ready jobs” – were there any “created?”

A quick check of Democrats.org, the national party’s website, also reveals a list of other specific policy ideas that the President allegedly supports, yet he isn’t talking about them these days. One such policy has to do with energy independence, as the Democrats claim that “President Obama knows we can’t just drill our way to lower gas prices,” and that President Obama is focused on “developing all of America’s natural resources...”

Of course, the President himself said late last year and earlier this year that he is committed to an “all of the above” approach to energy policy, implying that he’s okay with petroleum-based energy, along with the alternative energy development that he’s promoted.

This sounded great- but the President isn’t saying this anymore. This is probably because an “all of the above” approach to energy, we now know, means “anything except Big Oil” within the Obama worldview – hence the President’s veto on the Keystone XL Pipeline project that could have reduced America’s reliance on oil from other continents and could have created jobs from the Canadian border all the way down to Texas. The President and his friends would prefer to ignore this here within the last ten weeks of the election cycle, so they simply don’t talk about it – better to remind everyone about the scary and terrible Romney and Ryan.

Historically, Americans haven’ been content to merely vote against a particular idea or candidate – they generally prefer to vote for someone or something, even if they are choosing the lesser between two “evils.” Will President Obama defy the odds this year – or will Americans be more scrutinizing?


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The American Dream, Or The Dreams Of Obama’s Father?

By Austin Hill
You think President Obama is avoiding the subject of the economy?

Think again.

In reality, thoughts and ideas about the economy, and about economics, and about money – especially thoughts about other people’s money – animate just about everything that President Obama says and does. He is fixated on his belief that it is a grave injustice for a private individual, family or organization to be financially successful, and he is determined that his presidency will be the one to save our country from this “problem.”

So, while President Obama conveniently ignores the data on our current economic conditions – 8.3% unemployment, a decline in manufacturing, a rise in unemployment benefits claims and a drop in the labor force participation rate – he nonetheless cannot stop talking about the economy, and his vision of economic “transformation.” His contempt for individual economic achievements is a part of who he is – he cannot stop being himself.

The President’s recent obsession about Mitt Romney’s tax returns is only his latest in a long history of fussing about other people being wealthy. And the President’s disdainful attitude towards privately possessed wealth should surprise absolutely no one- his own father was also a powerful governmental figure who displayed this same kind of indignation.

Barack Hussein Obama Sr., the biological father of our President, was a bureaucrat in the communist government of Kenya back when the nation first declared its independence in the 1960’s. And while Kenya’s government was at that time moving towards pro-Western, free-market economic reforms, Obama staunchly opposed such changes.

Thus, Mr. Obama published an academic paper in 1965, responding to his government colleagues who supported the westernization of Kenya. Entitled “Problems Facing Our Socialism,” Mr. Obama advised Kenya’s then-President Jomo Kenyatta against relying on private investors, private capital, and private property ownership, as a means of improving the country’s dreadful economy. Why was private capital and investment a problem? Because, Mr. Obama reasoned, private investors inevitably seek to earn “dividends” from their investments, and “turning a profit” was the gravest of all immoralities. Instead, Mr. Obama proposed higher taxes on the wealthy, and a redistribution of that money, for the “collective good” of the nation.

“Theoretically, there is nothing that can stop the government from taxing 100% of income,” Mr. Obama wrote, “so long as the people get benefits from the government commensurate with their income which is taxed.” In the view of Barack Hussein Obama Sr., the right of the individual person to freely work, earn, and invest, meant nothing. All that mattered was the “collective good” of the nation. And if confiscating certain people’s hard-earned money could help benefit “everyone,” then so be it. That wealth would be put to better use, Mr. Obama argued, if it were controlled by the leader of the government.

Given this bit of President Obama’s familial history, it is not surprising that throughout his public life he himself has advocated for many of the same ideas that his father did over half a century ago. During the last presidential election cycle, alone, then-Senator Obama pushed for higher income taxes on “the rich” and higher business taxes on “excess profits” (his definition of “rich” and “excessive” changed almost weekly during the campaign); higher taxes on energy companies; government-imposed limits on private corporate salaries; and – his father would be so proud – higher taxes on dividend earnings. He even suggested at one point that the U.S. government should start taxing capital – not a new tax on interest or dividends derived from investment capital, but a tax on money sitting in banks doing nothing.

Now, four years later, the President is running for re-election in an economic environment made weaker by his own policies and ideas. And it is easy to dismiss as “mere politics” the President’s obsession with Mr. Romney’s net worth, his past work at a venture capital firm, and his annual tax returns – presumably the President is trying to portray Mr. Romney as a heartless aristocrat who is “out of touch” with everyday middleclass Americans.

But given what we know of President Obama and his expressed views of the world, it also stands to reason that, for him, the wealth that private citizen Mitt Romney possesses – as well as the wealth possessed by other private citizens like Mr. Romney – really is the most serious problem facing America today. Even just last week, amid more negative economic reports, the President delivered yet another of his speeches on his “new vision of America where prosperity is shared.”

What the President does not seem to understand (and what his father seemingly never understood), is that prosperity must first be created – by inventors, executives, entrepreneurs, investors, small business owners, and yes – sometimes even by “rich people” – before it can be re-distributed and “shared” by anybody. And if a society chooses to punish its wealthy members with ever-expanding taxation, rather than encouraging them to create more wealth, then eventually even the smartest of politicians run out of wealth to re-distribute.

So will the U.S. return to being a country where anybody can pursue the “American dream” without fear of retribution? Or has President Obama successfully supplanted the American dream with – to paraphrase one of his book titles – the dreams from his father?

We, the people, will have our say on this in November. Let’s hope we all make an informed choice.

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Athletes Yes, Business Owners No

By Austin Hill
Why is it okay to be a successful athlete, but not a successful business owner?

It’s been nearly two weeks since President Obama delivered his now famous “Roanoke rant,” wherein he noted to entrepreneurs that, among other things, “if you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”

Apparently the President’s spite and vitriol for business owners isn’t playing so well with voters. By the middle of last week, the Obama campaign was doing damage control with a new video advertisement explaining that the President had just been “taken out of context,” and he actually loves business owners.

But watch the “full context” of the Roanoke speech, and it becomes even clearer that the President was once again speaking the language of collectivist economics. While assuming the absolute worst about the motives of business owners, President Obama was again suggesting that wealth creation and material success are neither to be attributed to, nor enjoyed by individuals – only the collective masses can take credit for such successes, and we should all collectively share in the blessings of one-another’s wealth.

Call it socialism, call it Marxism, call it what you like. The President has made it clear throughout his professional life that he loathes the economic success of individual companies and business owners (unless, of course, such business owners are donating to his campaign), and regards their financial achievements as ill-gotten gain.

But would you ever expect the President of the United States – even President Barack Obama – to apply this kind of thinking to athletes? And after the U.S. Olympic Athletes return home from London, will the President invite them to the White House and lecture them on how “somebody else made it happen?”

It’s unlikely that President Obama would treat the Olympic competitors with the disdain that he shows to business owners. And if his recent treatment of a certain women’s college basketball team is any indication, then the U.S. Olympic athletes may be in for a real treat.

Two days after his “you didn’t do that” speech about business owners, the Baylor University women’s basketball team was welcomed to the White House for some time with President Obama. Speaking before the media, with the “Lady Bears of Baylor” standing on a platform behind him, the President recognized the achievements of the coaching staff, and then stated that “If there’s one thing to describe this team…it was dominant. Last season, the Lady Bears scored more points than any team in women’s college basketball history…”

Never did the President suggest that being “dominant” was problematic for the basketball team members. Likewise the President didn’t suggest that being the scoring leader was a selfish or greedy type of pursuit, or that the points were accrued by some sort of corrupt means. The President made it clear that the Lady Bears were number one, and they deserved to be recognized as such.

And might there have been some government-sponsored underpinning to the ladies’ success that the President could have noted? No doubt some of the Lady Bears are attending Baylor University with scholarship funds, some of which are probably generated from private donors and others provided by government agencies.

Yet President Obama didn’t single-out any financial aid recipients and tell them “you didn’t get here on your own,” nor did he bother to remind the players that they didn’t build the courts that they play on. Instead, President Obama chose not to malign the basketball players and coaches at all, but rather gave them high praise for their success.

In America we recognized the value of challenge – not just on the court or playing field, but in business as well. When everyone plays by the same rules, competition can develop human character, produce great products and services – and put lots of points on the scoreboard.

After the London games, our U.S. Olympic Athletes will likely get the “Lady Bear” treatment at the White House. But it is a disgrace that the President of the United States can’t understand the virtues of market competition, the way he understands the benefits of sports.


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Questions To Ask Democrats As They Abandon Barack

By Austin Hill
Democrats are abandoning Barack Obama’s ship.

Last week Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi instructed Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives to not attend this September’s Democratic National Convention. Instead, Ms. Pelosi insisted, their time would be better spent campaigning at home, rather than partying in Charlotte, N.C.

Ms. Pelosi’s announcement falls in line with the AFL-CIO, which announced the previous week that it won’t be spending money to bankroll the convention. And Pelosi and her Big Labor friends are in lockstep with Democrat U.S. Senators Jon Tester of Montana, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, and Joe Manchin of West Virginia – all of whom have chosen to avoid Barack Obama’s nomination for a second term.

After three and a half years of Barack Obama radicalizing their party, it now appears that some very powerful Democrats have had a startling realization: the Obama agenda is both dysfunctional and destructive, and has become politically lethal – Americans see that it bares little resemblance to America’s time-honored history and heritage, and they have begun to reject it outright.

Democrat candidates at all levels of government will go about campaigning over these next few months, making promises based upon their party platform without mentioning President Obama’s name. But as they talk about the following agenda items – all of which appear in the “issues” section of Democrats.Org, the national party’s web home – consider asking the candidates the accompanying questions below.

Let’s start with the issue of “energy independence.” Democrats tell us that “President Obama knows we can’t just drill our way to lower gas prices,” and that their party is focused on “developing all of America’s natural resources...” The President himself has said that he is committed to an “all of the above” approach to energy policy, implying that he’s okay with petroleum-based energy, along with the alternative energy development that he’s promoted.

This sounds great- but consider asking Democrats this question: “If President Obama is committed to an ‘all of the above’ strategy, why did he reject the Keystone XL pipeline project that would have produced employment opportunities from the Canadian border all the way to Texas?” In reality, an “all of the above” approach to energy policy means “anything except Big Oil” within the Obama worldview – but Democrats would prefer to ignore this.

Your Democrat candidate may prefer, instead, to tell you about their party’s agenda for “green energy.” On this point, you may wish to ask “how do you feel about CBS News reporting that the Obama Administration has lost $6.5 billion of our money already on what they described as ‘risky green energy ventures?’ Did CBS lie to us?”

You may also hear from your Democrat candidate that the party is fighting for “civil rights” on behalf of LGBT couples –which is to say that they’re working for legal sanctioning of same-sex marriage. Mention to them that Democrats in the California legislature are now working on a bill to expand parental rights to more than two parents per child. Under the California plan, any individual child could have three or perhaps more, legally identified mommies and daddies. Then ask the Democrat, “Why would you limit the structuring of marriages and families to only two adults? Given how President Obama’s position on this issue has evolved, and given the highly evolved position among California Democrats, aren’t you being a bit exclusionary and narrow-minded, trying to limit a marriage or a family to only two adults?”

Concerns about the economy are top of mind for us all, which puts Democrats in an awkward situation. Still, your Democrat candidate will likely remind you that President Obama inherited a bad economy and is now working to “creating jobs.” To this you may wish to simply ask “how is a job created?” Then listen carefully to the response. It will likely be highly amusing.

There are so many other questions to ask of your local Democrat candidate, regardless of the issues the candidate raises. “Why does the so-called ‘healthcare reform law’ expand the force and power of the I.R.S.?” “Why are illegal aliens exempt from the Obamacare tax?” “Is it purely coincidental that the executives of the ‘green energy’ companies that were recipients of President Obama’s grants and loans were also donors to his previous presidential campaign?” “Why has President Obama abandoned the work requirements imposed on welfare recipients by President Bill Clinton?” “Why is 80% of the Department of Agriculture’s budget spent on food stamps, while less than 20% of it is devoted to the farming industry?” “Why is the Obama Administration ‘collaborating’ with the government of Mexico to give American food stamps to illegal aliens?” Your local Democrat will probably not want to hear these questions, and may have to admit that they disagree with parts of the President’s agenda.

You might even hear your local Democrat say that they’re abandoning the President’s agenda for America altogether – just like so many of them have abandoned the President’s convention in September.


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“Gaffe”, When a politician is caught telling the truth

 by Idaho Conservative Blogger
A lot has been written about what the media has been calling President Obama’s recent political “Gaffe.” You didn’t build that.”

Democrats complained the President has been taken out of context even though the video went viral and clearly showed the President marginalizing American inventiveness and willingness to gamble sometimes at high risk for ideas they believe in. American entrepreneurs have a long history of massive accomplishments and solid track record for creating jobs.

President Obama seems unable to grasp this appreciation. Perhaps it’s the community organizer in him that can’t seem to grasp the notion that businesses that thrive and make profits not only create jobs but also wealth for the American worker. Perhaps the Liberal/Socialist part of him is unwilling to even try.

I read recently, and it’s spot on, “Everyone knows we all get help in life. But we have always started with the individual and then worked out. It is not part of the American mindset to begin with the collective and admonish individuals for thinking too highly of their contribution. “

Over and over again President Obama says things that seem to come across to many as un-American or at least un-proud of America. Many shake their heads wondering how this man became President of a nation he doesn’t seem to be very proud of. Democrats always counter by saying he is just so much smarter then the rest of us, that we just are unable to grasp his greatness and logic. It’s just too far above the average American’s intellect. They say the “You didn’t build that” statement might have just been a “gaffe” from a President who was a little tired from running the country and busy campaigning for his second term.

I believe Charles Krauthammer is the one who got it right by saying,

“A gaffe is when a politician is caught telling the truth about what they believe.”


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Running A Champaign Based On Lies

Barack Hussein Obama cannot run on his record. To do so would guarantee his defeat. Obama is desperate to keep the political discussion away from his performance as president, his abuse of power, and his flagrant trashing of the U.S. Constitution.

In an effort to hide his own record Obama has decided to attack Mitt Romney for being an evil, vicious, unscrupulous “CAPITALIST’. Mr. Romney is without a doubt a capitalist, but everything else is an absolute lie. This should not come as a surprise as everyone knows that Obama lies often and with more conviction than he tells the truth. Furthermore, Obama’s political bible, “Rules for Radicals” tells him to attack his ‘enemies’. That the attack need not be based on any truth; repeating the lie frequently will “make it the truth”.

Obama would have you believe that investment companies like Bain Capital, which Mr. Romney once headed, make their living buying companies, firing the employees and selling off the assets.

Companies like Bain Capital make profits by risking their own money in failing companies. It is very much like playing poker. A hand is dealt (a troubled company); the investor exams that hand (why is it in trouble & can I we fix it?); if he likes what he sees he plays the hand (buys the troubled company). The investors then infuse more money and make whatever changes are needed to restore the troubled company to good market value so that the once troubled company can be sold at a profit.

There are times when the investors loose the bet and cannot save the company. On those occasions the investors close the company and sell whatever assets they can to prevent additional loses. They never make “massive profits”, as Obama claims.

If there was money to be made by the sell assets, you can bet the original owners would have done so.

In most venture capital deals people do loose their jobs.

You cannot save a company as long expenses exceed income. In almost every business employees are the largest expense.

Some years back one the world’s major corporations found themselves losing hundreds of millions of dollars per year.

They hired a tough, no nonsense CEO with a track record of saving failing businesses. One of his first actions was to fire 20,000 employees. The newspapers and television attack him as heartless. However, a few short years latter the company had returned, better than before and had added many times over the number that had been fired.

Obama has focused on a single company wherer Bain Capital gambled and lost.  He attempts to hang that failure around Romney’s neck to prove how evil and heartless he is.

If Obama ever told the truth on this issue, you would know that Romney had left Bain Capital more than 2 years prior to this lone failure on the part of Bain Capital.

The facts are that if it were not for lies, Obama would have nothing to say. --WD


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