Thursday, November 27, 2008

Obama and the 4 key trends in US political-economy.

The US is at a critical point in history and it is collectively choosing suicide.

by Lego Acies





For the first time in history, the Americans have elected a President who has never had a job. President-elect Obama has never worked in the private sector; never ran an organisation; never met a payroll; and never hired a single private sector employee. He was a city-state paid lawyer 'organising' his Chicago community to achieve his personal political ambitions. He is the ultimate insider and corrupt politician without a clue about policy, the economy, trade or foreign affairs. What he portends for the future direction of the US is not a positive.

The US is now on a very dangerous left-ward lurch – irregardless of the media's rhetoric about how 'centrist' the new Black messiah will be. Obama and his friends, including most of the old Clinton administration which is now being hired into Obama's government, are not centrist. It was the Republican Congress which dominated the politics of the 1990's which kept budgets balanced, gave the US tax cuts, welfare reform and NAFTA and which made Clinton assume the role of an economic conservative. No such constraint exists today on an Obama administration. The Republicans have lost credibility, seats and are in disarray [how else can one explain Sarah Palin]. There is nothing to stop Obama from enacting his true beliefs and ones which he has openly espoused for 12 years in politics – large scale government ownership of production, social processes and the elimination of risk. It is the European model he has supported albeit in stages.

The US political-economy will only get worse after Obama's coronation and this will be demonstrated over succeeding administrations. This means that whatever Obama will implement might only have future repercussions as opposed to an immediate impact. If Obama implements his big statist ideas not only will the US economy suffer further decline, the spending and program building developed in the next 4 years will be almost politically impossible to unravel. Government programs only grow, they never shrink.

We have seen this story repeated countless times in the past 100 years.

FDR's failed domestic administration which prolonged the Great Depression and gutted US business, bequeathed to American taxpayers the socialist housing finance firms of Freddie and Fannie which were key players in the current housing finance meltdown; a bankrupt state managed social security system; and an inefficient socialised US health care system which has nothing whatsoever to do with free markets but which is badly in need of costly repair [US governments spend 60% of all health care dollars and firmly control the rest through legislation].

LBJ's great socialist society program of the 1960s erected a huge welfare system which is now bankrupt with attendant and unforeseen social costs such as the destruction of Black families and massive illegal immigration. Welfare and 'mandatory' payments for social programs now constitute 80% of US federal government spending [which is now over $3 Trillion per year].

Bush and the current Congress and their desire to print and spend $3.5 Trillion, will likewise have enormous distortive impacts on the US political-economy in the future and will likely result in another financial crisis and stock market meltdown, along with a declining US dollar, high inflation and far lower living standards.

So what will Obama do and what does he represent ?

This man's rather bizarre triumph is a demonstration of 4 main trends in US politics and at this moment there is no conservative or independent movement [outside of Newt Gingrich's 'American Solutions' a bi-partisan attempt to create a host of new ideas to solve critical problems] with the leadership, the money, and the policies to prevent this. Obama's election confirms these 4 inimical trends in the development of the American state:

1.An inevitable left-ward statist drift as government gets ever more powerful and the US media moves from journalism to open left wing political support;
2.The rise of minority groups and their political action groups, as clients and in fact arbiters of the state and of political power;
3.The irrational brainwashing of whole segments of society by the state and Hollywood, including the young and the misinformed, who lack an organising prinicple in life and who look to empty slogans; charismatic leaders, a cult following and Hollywood for direction even as they denigrate capitalists, Christians and Jews.
4.The demise of the original American idea, based on Puritanism, Protestantism, articles of the Judeo-Christian code, and the self-belief in human created progress, that individualism, initiative, risk taking, capital market formation and technological progress are the best ways to human, environmental, and worldly salvation.

If Obama chooses to appease those who voted him: the poor, the minority, Blacks, the brainwashed state-trained young, the union worker, the protectionist, the Hollywood Upper West side Ivy trained snots; the anti-faith anti-church factions; illegal immigrants; the uber-rich with their champagne socialism – the US will be bankrupted. That is an easy prediction. If he chooses the path of reform, tax cuts, spending cuts; the abolition of US crony–capitalism, and the reduction of lobby groups he will propel the US economy upwards and will be re-elected with ease in 2012.

No one knows what he will do – but the trends in the US are ominous. The bet is between Obama turning himself into a young Reagan, or Obama becoming just another sniveling Jimmy Carter or FDR. A betting man would pick the latter and act accordingly. Don't be surprised however if in 20 years people looking back will say that Obama was far too conservative and centrist.

So predict the 4 major trends which will over time destroy the US. It is going to get worse and not better unless some very powerful counter-cultural forces are created. And few of those now exist. If the Americans want to save their country, they will need to get very busy to reverse the current and rather obvious trends to destruction.