-By Dan Scott
Recently China’s Premier Wen Jiabao said out loud as a foreign leader what most of us have been thinking and saying for months now. The government headed by Barrack Obama needs to get its financial house in order and the policy chosen by him to borrow his way to prosperity is not what China is going to subsidize. Other Chinese government leaders have characterized President Obama’s current behavior as “reckless policies.” We, who are conservatives, wholly agree with this assessment. It’s ironic that US conservatives and the leaders of China who were formerly ideological enemies are in complete agreement in seeing Obama and the Democrats policies as reckless. This is not to say we agree on other issues like China’s one child policy for population control or their attitudes toward private property both indicating the Chinese government’s right to micromanage the affairs of individuals. To further underline the irony of this agreement both US conservatives and the leaders of China see nothing wrong in wealth disparity and furthermore it is beneficial to the uplifting of society as a whole. This is in complete contradiction to the President Obama’s stated enmity toward the top 1% of wealth producers in this country. Obama’s budget, a federal document, actually identifies the wealthy as the cause of the country’s woes!
“While middle-class families have been playing by the rules, living up to their responsibilities as neighbors and citizens, those at the commanding heights of our economy have not.”
“Prudent investments in education, clean energy, health care and infrastructure were sacrificed for huge tax cuts for the wealthy and well-connected.”
“There’s nothing wrong with making money, but there is something wrong when we allow the playing field to be tilted so far in the favor of so few. . . . It’s a legacy of irresponsibility, and it is our duty to change it.”
(quotes courtesy of Roger Kimball’s article)
I submit these statements by President Obama are falsehoods based on the old tired Democrat theme of class warfare or wealth envy to garner the votes of the have-nots. What more proof does one need to label Obama as the Great Divider? The only people he is uniting are those who believe they are entitled to money that is not theirs and those who seek power by duping the poor into voting for them. Throwing more money down the rat hole of the Teacher’s Unions, euphemistically called the Schools will not improve grades. On the contrary, it is an indisputable fact the more they get, the lower the kids’ grades go. Look at the schools in Obama’s home district or look at the ones in California. Blaming the wealthy for the failure of schools to give kids an education is a non sequitur. Blaming the wealthy for not being soaked enough in taxes to pay for Democrats spending agendas is the height of absurdity when the majority of personal income taxes are already paid by the top 5% earners. Since when is paying the majority of income taxes NOT playing by the rules? For a person who claims to have studied the US Constitution, Obama seems to be woefully ignorant of the idea of proportionality of direct taxation and taxation without representation. Apparently, President Obama’s Socialist version of the Constitution is not the same as the one we understand of being personal responsible of one’s actions and the limitations against government to extend special rights, benefits and privileges at the expense of others no matter the rationalization.
China’s leadership realized long ago that Capitalism was the answer to the needs of its 1.4 billion people living in abject poverty. Literally hundreds of millions were lifted out of poverty because the leaders of China had the humility to recognize Communism doesn’t work. Born of pragmatism, China’s leaders recognized they could not lift their people out of poverty on the backs of the wealthy few by redistribution of wealth policies. Instead, they took their example from the US where those who are wealthy pull up those in poverty by their very activity of wealth creation. It’s called the win/win scenario. President Obama and the Democrats would do well to learn from and listen to the leaders of China. President Obama’s redistributionist policies are reckless!
The leaders of China have recognized just as we conservatives that deficit spending to finance government programs and benefits are not economic stimulus. However, what the leaders of China do not recognize is that the current leadership of the US are not believers in Capitalism, they are believers in the utopian liberal dream. Utopia is not reality and liberals are not interested in living in the real world, thus their policies bear no resemblance to reality. Barring the impeachment of Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Barrack Obama, the course laid out for the US is pretty much etched in stone in it’s hell bent rush for liberal Nirvana. This reality or rather UNreality of the current US leadership puts both the Chinese and the average American on a firm course with economic catastrophe.
US imports and exports are dropping like a stone. Imports and Exports are an integral component of US GDP. What Obama and the Democrats are seemingly incapable of understanding is that without GDP growth, there can be NO job creation. Employment and unemployment in the US economy is a lagging indicator as it follows economic growth, i.e. GDP. The failure to stimulate economic activity translates directly in a failure of job creation. Simply borrowing money for government make work projects and benefits does not stimulate the economy, it merely redistributes working capital away from private enterprise where the real jobs are created. Government jobs are not real jobs because the money for those paychecks come from taxes and borrowed money taken from non-government sources, i.e. private enterprise and those who work for them.
I mentioned in a previous article individuals have a choice to oppose the government’s policies and publicly dissent. As far as China is concerned I make no secret that I have called for all foreign governments to stop buying US financial instruments since as long as they continue to do so, they enable and thus condone the reckless policies of the current US leadership. For China to hold US bonds they face the double risk of currency devaluation and principal loss as interest rates go up. Simply asking the current US government to not devalue Chinese holdings is like asking the scorpion not to sting (The Scorpion And The Fox). I submit to the China and all the rest of the countries holding US financial obligations unless the reckless policies instituted by Obama and the Democrats are reversed (laws repealed), not simply stopped, the devaluation of your holdings is inevitable. President Obama’s sales pitch that US financial instruments and domestic companies are sound is nothing short of laughable given the reckless policies he is determined to follow. The markets are forward looking and have seen the writing on the wall with Obama’s demonization of the wealthy. Obama and the Democrats believe in wealth redistribution NOT wealth creation, they admitted to it IN WRITING in the President’s proposed budget as noted earlier. Furthermore, they admitted via their economic forecast that they fully expect the economy to recover on its own long before any significant amount of so called stimulus actually takes place and the tax increases to pay for the non stimulus, stimulus will go into effect in 2011. The ugly truth is Obama and the Democrats plan to take credit for the economy recovering on its own and then act as a parasite to siphon off money to pay for their policies.
There is only one way to stop these reckless policies in their tracks and that is a public announcement by China that it will not buy any more US financial instruments. Secondly as part of that announcement China must say they believe both the Chinese and American people are in grave economic peril and the leadership of China will act unilaterally to save them by using $1 trillion US dollar of their reserves to stimulate our combined economies. Only a total public repudiation of liberal utopianism by the Chinese will shock the Democrat controlled US government and force a re-evaluation of their reckless policies. The Chinese economic rescue plan will be based upon Capitalism, that is activity to create wealth not redistribute it. Holding over a trillion US dollars in low interest financial instruments is a waste of working capital. Low interest rate US federal bonds do not create wealth as they are not invested in any capital expansion in plant and equipment. China has great needs where it comes to pollution control, energy generation and health care, which incidentally are America’s greatest strengths, the AGW/CO2 hoax aside. Implementing a bonafide economic stimulus is a win/win solution for both China and America because both are receiving a benefit and wealth is created in the process.
A Chinese stimulus plan would take advantage of the trade synergies between both countries. China could upgrade all it’s coal fired power plants and other industrial plants with scrubbers purchased from US companies to deal with their massive air pollution problems and substantially lower health issues that arise from sulfur compounds and particulate matter in the air. They could purchase multiple new nuclear power plants of US design and manufacture to provide the needed electrical power for their population and industry. They could purchase oil drilling equipment and use US energy companies to drill oil and gas wells. They could retrofit all existing vehicles with catalytic converters to combat carbon monoxide pollution in their cities. They could purchase advanced American made medical equipment to upgrade their hospitals, clinics and doctor’s offices to improve their health care.
Is my suggestion the height of audacity? Is it hopeful thinking? Is it a change in policies we can live with? You be the judge. What if China came out and did as I suggest over a two or three year period? Would the economies of China and America meltdown or would they both grow from the synergy of a win/win solution? Isn’t tough love better in the long run than experiencing the failure of a liberal utopian dream?
Reference:
China’s Premier Wen ‘Worried’ on Safety of Treasuries
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Dan Scott calls himself a “Member of the Global Capitalist Cabal preaching Capitalism and personal responsibility as the economic solution to world poverty.” He is also a member of the 14th Amendment Society — victimhood is a liberal code word for denying the civil rights of others. He is also a proud member of the Global Warming Denier Cabal, insisting that facts not agendas determine the truth.
Dan can be seen on the web at http://www.geocities.com/fightbigotry2002/ as well as http://www.geocities.com/dscott8186/saidwebpage.htm, And can be reached for comments at dscott8186@yahoo.com.
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