Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Why Blame Obama for a Bad Economy?

After all, he's just one ordinary man -  albeit, the president of the greatest nation on earth, to be sure - but a mere human being nonetheless. 
It has always been the big central banks that controls the global economies (represented by the G-7) and thus, the nations, and thus, rules the world. And as we've all seen, that's been pretty much a given as we've all educated ourselves over these last 2½ years.

So why blame Obama for a bad economy? Who's been complaining the most? The big banks? The big corporations?

If it's a thriving economy for the working-class, and a return of a "middle-class", and a reduced national debt that you want, what would you have our humble leader do? Outlaw labor unions? Lower taxes even more for the rich? Eliminate corporate and capital gains taxes altogether? Send more jobs to China for cheaper labor? What do you expect of our president?

Mayer Amschel Bauer (founder of the Rothschild family): "Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes the laws."
Lord Rothschild: "Governments do not govern, but merely control the machinery of government, being themselves controlled by the hidden hand. The world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes".

Nathan Mayer Rothschild: "I care not what puppet is placed upon the throne of England to rule the Empire on which the sun never sets. The man who controls Britain's money supply controls the British Empire, and I control the British money supply."  

All the facts plainly show that it was under George W. Bush that, since he initiated his tax cuts right after he first got into office, America saw her national debt grow astronomically high (from 4 trillion to 9 trillion in his 8 years in office). It was under George W. Bush that we lost several million jobs - at first, gradually to outsourcing since the Reagan years, up to the mass-layoffs that began during the last year Bush held office. It was under George W. Bush that Americans had to fund two very lengthy and expensive wars. It was under George W. Bush that we saw the HUGE damage done by the credit default swaps (CDS) that were allowed by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, passed along party lines by the Republicans just before Bush took office. It was under George W. Bush that we saw the financial collapse of Wall Street, and the crashes of the stock markets and housing market. It was under George W. Bush that we bailed out the banks with TARP, which in itself was the biggest bank robbery ever in the history of the world...perpetrated by the bankers themselves!

And if you lost money in the stock market, or saw your 401k decline, or lost value in your home, or were foreclosed on and evicted, or were laid off from your job, then you already know all these things...so the Republicans can't re-write this part of history!

Obama's biggest (and maybe only) mistake was focusing on healthcare rather than the economy when he first took office, but I can understand why. It was a unique time in political history when the Democrats finally had a chance to get a national healthcare law passed, something that they have wanted for years. But even during this whole time, the economy DID recover, just not for the 40 million under-employed or unemployed Americans.

But we have to remember, Obama can't hire people in the private sector, he can only put people to work in the federal government. No president or congress can create jobs, but will always take the credit for a good economy and will always take the blame for a bad economy (a "good" economy is when average working folks are doing well, not just if the big banks and big corporations are).

But because Republicans don't want to raise taxes on the rich, the big banks, and big corporations (and because of high unemployment and lower property tax revenues due to the housing crash and record foreclosures), states budgets are suffering and have been laying off state workers as well.

The big banks and the big corporations control the economy, government can only regulate and tax. And whenever government attempts to regulate and tax, big banks and big corporations use armies of lawyers to circumvent regulations and taxes. The Republicans made it possible for the big banks to sell derivatives and for big corporations to outsource jobs...and Republicans made it possible for the big banks and big corporations to circumvent regulations and taxes.

Yet incredibly, one man is being blamed for the economy. I find that very odd as Obama was just beginning his first semester of school at Columbia University in 1981 when Ronald Reagan took office and then eliminated the windfall profits tax, and Obama was just an Illinois state senator when the Republicans enacted the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act in 1999, and when the Bush tax cuts were first implemented in 2001, and Obama was just one vote in Congress when the housing market crashed after Enron, the Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns failed in 2008. A Republican (George W. Bush) was the president when all the big banks got their huge low-interest loans from the taxpayers with TARP (aka "The Biggest Bank Robbery in History of the World").

As anyone can plainly see from the chart below from Google Finance, the stock market was crashing in the last year under George W. Bush, while for the last two years under Obama the stock market has recovered. The big banks and big corporations have been making record profits, and its executives, record salaries and bonuses. For the big banks and the big corporations, the economy HAS recovered, it's just a "jobless recovery" because big banks and big corporations aren't investing in America and hiring people (hording cash), while "emerging markets" (those in China with American jobs spending money) is the new customer base for the big banks and big corporations.

The CEO of General Electric says, “Today we go to Brazil, we go to China, we go to India, because that’s where the customers are." (As Obama's JOB CZAR, even I have to admit how astounded I was after hearing about the jobs he outsourced while collecting a huge salary and GE paid no corporate taxes.)



President Obama, because we live in  free society, can't single-handedly FORCE big banks and big corporations to build factories and hire people in America. And the only legislation the Republicans will pass is just regulations and tax laws favorable to big banks and big corporations (their campaign donors, "cash-for-votes"). Whenever the Democrats try to pass legislation that will benefit ordinary working folks (i.e. taxes on the rich to bring down the debt, or the reform of the banks, or policies against outsourcing jobs), the Republicans vote against it.

Meanwhile the Democrats have been kept busy defending worker's rights and protecting Medicare and Social Security for us (and jobless benefits for the unemployed)...all the programs the Republicans want to cut, rather than cut anything in the defense industry and subsidies for tobacco or oil companies ("cash-for-votes").

Obama is just one guy, and he's not a miracle worker...and considering the tools he has to work with (and the Republicans, who only represents the interests of big banks and big corporations), he's hamstrung until we can get more politicians (Progressive Democrats) into office that will stand firm against the big banks and the big corporations. The big banks and big corporations have Obama by the balls and they know it. (Read The Threats of Business) Out of spite, just to make Obama look bad, they can lay off more people (or manipulate the stock market again). But for now, they are doing just fine, thank you very much! The only thing big banks and big corporations have to worry about now is, whether or not the radical Tea party members in congress will refuse to raise the debt ceiling. If not, the ceiling comes down on everyone.

"The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the Government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson." ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

3 comments:

  1. Regarding this: “Today we go to Brazil, we go to China, we go to India, because that’s where the customers are."

    From things I have seen and read recently, the workers who slave in the sweatshops to make the products, don't even earn enough to buy what they make, so how can GE say, ...because that's where the customer are."? I think they go there just because they don't have to pay as much, in wages, and provide decent working conditions, etc., which saves them money.

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  2. "The stimulus wasn't a stimulus at all, not to mention his appointment for the Head Fed has done more damage to the dollar - which has a negative effect on our economy." (Yes, it was our central bank and the big investment bank Goldman Sachs that caused most of the damage. But Obama wasn't complicit, just naive. I wrote about this.)
    See Inside Job: The Film that Cost Over $20 Trillion to make!
    http://bud-meyers.blogspot.com/2011/04/inside-job-film-that-cost-over-20.html

    "Blame Bush? Hilarious! Unemployment was average 5%" (Yes, the unemployment rate went up after the layoffs by circumstances that were already set in motion, long before Obama was elected. A sitting president (as a figure head) had no control over this. It would have happened if McCain were elected.

    "...the damage the Barney Frank and Chris Dodd did to our economy." Yes, they were fools, and it was a contributing factor. Frank's ignorance about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was astounding. But it was the GOP who deregulated the banks that allowed for this to happen in the first place.)
    "Partisan tripe" - I was a once a steadfast conservative Republican since the Reagan years, but after 2008 I did a lot of research and changed my views. Not "tripe", it's the result of acquired knowledge.

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  3. FDR's grandson: "Obama's economic advisors--all of whom come from the culture of Wall Street--have convinced him that challenging the business community too sharply would impinge on economic recovery. He has also carefully avoided criticism of the Bush Administration, I suppose because he wished to make a great point of reaching across the aisle to his Republican opposition. He has thus deprived himself of making plain who was responsible for the Great Recession. The legacy President Obama inherited from the Bush administration shortly became his own, and the American people never got a true sense of his values."

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/curtis-roosevelt/why-obama-should-play-the_b_859746.html

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