The Unpoor: Devolution to Socialism

Dear Readers: Today’s theme is in two parts:

1) How we are being battered by our government, badly; and,
2) How we are responding.

From time to time, I am delighted to post an sound, economic analysis from a dear friend who is highly placed in the world of finance — in other words, a real capitalist! Below is her summation of our current attitudes and trends in regards to flaming capitalism.

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An unprecedented change in wealth in the United States has taken place before our unsuspecting eyes. Congress has passed a $700 billion spending package being sold to the American public as a stimulus for the economy, when in fact it is the opposite. What a legacy for President’s Day in perpetuity, this gift from the new Democrat President and our Congress under the thumb of liberal Democrats.

In a rush to pass measures which will pander both to voters and special interests that borders on nothing less than fanaticism, liberals now in charge have begun what is their goal of redistribution of wealth in this country. What they are telling voters by their magnanimous gift in form of a tax credit of a few cents per diem is that they are much more equipped to keep and spend your tax dollars, and to especially spend them on “the poor”. Even if you happen to be one of the insensates who believe Democrats are genuinely concerned about “equality for everyone”, you might do well to remember that the greatest dictators in the world established their power and authority by the same methodology, that of a promise to take back for the poor what the upper classes had amassed.

On a global basis, if you live at the “poverty line” here in the United States, you are more wealthy than 90% of the rest of the world. Your education, a tool with which to better yourself and climb out of poverty, is free. Your overall health and sanitation conditions are better than about 90% of the world, inclusive of air quality standards. The global warming Nazis rarely talk about air quality standards for a good reason. Those are measurable, in which case improved results might end grant money. Air quality standards in the United States as a whole have been on a trend of improvement for about the past 20 years, and are now at the top of the industrialized nations of the world. You have the finest military in the world to defend you as well as provide free assistance and help in the event of a local emergency, abundant charitable institutions which rush to give everything from art scholarships to food banks for the hungry. You have cheap transportation cost in comparison with other developed economies. In the United States, approximately 90% of Americans own their own home, by far the highest percentage of any country’s population. While eschewing gratitude in favor of entitlement, the current rumble of voices demand not equal opportunity, but equal results. The failure to recognize the great gift an economy rooted in capitalism has been to us in America will be our downfall. The current party in power in Washington, D.C. is committed to the process of punishing the productive and rewarding the unproductive.

Emphasizing this administration’s concern about “global warming”, the economic “stimulus” is full of long-term infrastructure and technology and environmental expenditures mandated for states who take the initial government outlays to shore up their declining tax revenues. These will be very expensive and long-lasting. Meaning that, once tax revenues have returned to more or less normal, state taxpayers will be saddled with additional demands to meet the federally-mandated programs, likely as an add-on layer to increases for many in their federal taxes to fund this massive “stimulus”. If this bill does anything remotely related to jobs, it is to save mostly government jobs by cash outlays to fund state treasuries. It saves a government in panic that their jobs might be the ones to go and that their power might revert to individual ownership and autonomy from government support.

All of which brings us of course to what and who will pay for this. The answer is only the generations of Americans to come. Double-digit GDP growth for a successive 20 years wouldn’t do it, when inclusive of the Social Security and Medicare off-balance sheet obligations already owed by our federal government. Perhaps a 50-year horizon is more likely. Half a century of Americans who want to work hard enough to fund a massive government giveaway to those whose primary goal is to get all they can from the government and not from their own provision. It will be interesting to see how many people are comfortable with the government’s new definition of success: socialism over capitalism. It will be interesting to see what the next half-century in America brings. But you can rest assured that unless we quickly reverse the present trend of ever-increasing government and social entitlement programs, what it won’t be is a return to personal responsibility and creation of individual wealth we have known for the previous three-and-a-half centuries.

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For further lessons in the banking crists and who actuallys directly responsible for this mess, check Grouchy Old Cripple in Atlanta.

For an apalling review of how the elite media erases a story that is entirely negative about Obama, read this Instapundit post and weep. An unfettered press is suppose to be one of the sacred guardians of American Freedom!

In summary, it is time to party like it’s 1773!