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The Address Obama Should Have Given - For a Change to Freedom
by Richard M. Ebeling
courtesy of Northwood Univesity (1)
h/t Mises Institute (2)
The Address Obama Should Have Given - For a Change to Freedom
President Barack Obama delivered his first State of the Union address
before the Congress of the United States on January 27, and in essence
called for more of the same policies that he has advocated during his
first year in the White House.
The
president proposed a new “stimulus” packaged to create “green” jobs in
the small business and exporting sectors of the American economy; a
continuing effort to implement some version of nationalized health
care; the introduction of strangling environmental regulations over
private enterprise; plus, additional and more intrusive government
oversight of the finance and banking industry. He also proposed a
partial “freeze” on some discretionary spending in the Federal
government’s budget.
In other words, the president, in an
often defiant tone, insisted that as far as he is concerned the era of
“Big Government” is not only still here to stay, but needs to be
dramatically expanded -- even if some recent elections and public
opinion polls suggest that a growing number of Americans are leery of
moving further in this direction.
In the face of the President
Obama’s determination to push for more “change” down the path of
expanding political paternalism, one imagines what he might have said
in the State of the Union address if he had chosen to propose the type
of change that really would have meant greater freedom and opportunity
for the American people.
What he could have said might have been something like the following:
“My
fellow Americans, I come before you tonight to lay out a new agenda for
change that will not only get our great nation out of our current and
difficult economic times, but will put us on track for a bright and
better future for ourselves and our children.“Let me start out
by saying that last month during my Christmas holiday vacation in
Hawaii, I had the time to catch up on some reading. I found on the top
shelf of a bookcase in the White House some books that I guess must
have been left over from when Ronald Reagan was president more than
twenty years ago.“So I took with me some books I’ve never
read before, indeed, that my “progressive” professors and mentors had
never even mentioned during my college days. I read Henry Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson, Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose, Friedrich A. Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom, and Ayn Rand’s Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal.“I
stand before you tonight, my fellow Americans, and tell you that I now
realize how misguided and wrong-headed were all the ideas that I
learned and which molded by thinking as a young man, and which inspired
by campaign when I ran for this high office in 2008.”[Behind the president, frozen and confused looks on the faces of Vice-President Joe Biden and Speaker Nancy Pelosi.]
“I
now appreciate that real “people power” does not come by giving more
political power and control to politicians and bureaucrats over the
lives of the citizenry. No, it can only come from reducing the size and
scope of government, and giving people the freedom to plan and direct
their own lives through the peaceful and productive avenues of the free
market and entrepreneurial creativity.”[Restive murmurs from the Democratic side of the House of Representatives.]
“Today,
America still faces high unemployment and a sluggish business recovery.
It is clear to me, now, that is was the “easy money” monetary policy of
the Federal Reserve and government manipulation of the housing market
through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac during the Bush years that created
the economic bubbles that burst before I took office.“But
after doing some follow-up reading while flying back to Washington
right after the Detroit bomb-scare, I understand, now, that once the
financial boom years had lead to the inescapable bust through which we
are living, the policies that I advocated and pushed Congress to
implement last year have only ended up making a bad situation even
worse.“I have instructed Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner to see
to it that before the end of February every senior and middle level
officer in his department will have read the works of Ludwig von Mises
and Friedrich A. Hayek on the “Austrian” theory of the business cycle.
They will be required to successfully pass a written test to
demonstrate their understanding of this theory if they are to retain
their positions in the Treasury Department”[Secretary Geithner
is seen on television text messaging on his Blackberry some of his Wall
Street friends about possible job openings for someone with his
background and experience.]“I have also informed Ben Bernanke,
that I am withdrawing my nomination for his reappointment for another
term as chairman of the Federal Reserve System. I will immediately have
my staff start vetting new candidates for that position who support
transitioning the United States back to the gold standard.”[Ben
Bernanke is seen on camera muttering under his breathe, “In Keynes we
trust, in Keynes we trust,” while making notes about courses he might
teach back at Princeton University in the fall semester.]“But
the real change, my fellow Americans, will come from a radical reversal
of the types of policies that our country has been following for far
too long. To begin with, I will be presenting to the Congress an agenda
to cut government spending across the board by 20 percent for each of
the remaining three years of my term of office as your president. I am
not only talking about cutting discretionary spending, which only makes
up only a fraction of the Federal budget. No, I mean all programs,
including what are called entitlement programs, as well. I will appoint
a blue ribbon commission to devise a plan to completely end government
involvement in and privatize social security and health care."The
only way out of our current economic recession is to get out of the way
of the private sector so it can the create new and sustainable jobs to
replace those that were recently lost because of the disastrous
policies of the past that produced the unsustainable employments and
imbalances that now need to be set right through the free interplay of
market supply and demand."This will not come through the smoke
and mirror of supposed “stimulus” packages that only siphon off the
wealth of you, the people, through taxes and borrowing, and which leave
a huge debt that we and our children will have hanging over our heads
for decades to come."I am determined to end all government
regulatory, subsidy and redistributive programs that take the hard
earned income and wealth out of your hands, the hardworking American
citizenry, and return to you the financial ability and open and
competitive opportunity to plan what is best for you and your family. “[The
cell phones start to vibrate in the pockets of every Senator and
Congressmen on both sides of the aisle from lobbying representatives of
special interest groups that have been feeding at the trough of
government spending, and benefitting from regulatory favors and
privileges.]“Government cannot create wealth. It can only
either redistribute it or destroy it. Wealth comes from free men
applying their minds to creatively finding ways to improve life. This
requires that each and every American know that their government will
protect their life and property, and not plunder them for the benefit
of privileged others who use the power of the state to gain what they
cannot honestly earn in the free exchange of the market place.“I
would like to introduce Shalala Brown, sitting over there in the
gallery next to my wife. Shalala is a heroic inner city young woman of
seventeen who dropped out of high school to help support her family,
but who cannot find a job because the minimum wage law has priced her
modest labor skills out of the market.“Sitting on the other
side of my wife is Jenny Jones. Jenny is 93 this year. She worked hard,
saved her money, and had been living all of her life in a modest, but
well kept home that was taken away from her under eminent domain laws.
A fat cat land developer with close ties to the mayor in the town where
Jenny lived had her home condemned so a shopping mall could be built
where Jenny’s house once stood.“What kind of judicial decision
would deprive an honest, hardworking American of their home to benefit
a greedy special interest and a money-hungry local government?”[The president glances over, with a stern look of disapproval, at the justices of the Supreme Court.]
“I
now realize that it has been the most exaggerated arrogance by people
like myself – before I did my Christmas holiday reading – to think that
we have the knowledge, wisdom and ability to plan, direct, and
manipulate the lives of others in society.[Behind the
president, Speaker Pelosi is seen hyperventilating and grasping her
chest. Vice-President Biden has a look of bewilderment with his hands
stiff in mid-clap.]“The knowledge, wisdom and ability to solve
any and all of our problems can be found. But they only can be found
through energies and efforts of free men and women who work together in
the market place.“The profit motive and pressures of peaceful
competition for excellence through free enterprise will be the ways we
find solutions to health care, the environment, and a more prosperous
life and future for all Americans in the twenty-first century."“My fellow Americans, thank you, and God bless America. Let the real changes for freedom begin.”
If only the President of the United States had the understanding and the courage to give such a State of the Union address !
(1) http://defenseofcapitalism.blogspot.com/2010/01/address-obama-should-have-given-for.html
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Limbaugh on The State of the Union Speech:
Obama is Delusional Like Castro and Chavez
Heritage et al about to go after Chavez; big time.
the neocon playbook is almost entirely predicated upon, to be cute, lynne cheney & company.
AEI, Heritage et cet are a great place to read what slop will be thrust under the eyes of actual decision-making BoD's in the week ahead (once their handlers' assistants parse it that is).
"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them (around the banks), will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered." - Thomas Jefferson
The deflationary collapse that is now taking hold will inevitably come into public view as a deliberate strategy to bankrupt the middle class and force hundreds of millions of families in the West into foreclosure - so that bankers and financial speculators like George Soros can swoop in and buy up assets at pennies on the dollar.
If we’re to take the US and EU central bankers at their word, we’re going into a decades long deflationary abyss. No more money printing, no more stimulus, no more QE, no more bailouts. The future is parabolic increases in bankruptcy, foreclosure, lawsuits and congressional hearings. Some of you – even on this site – employ some twisted logic that suggests that this is going to be supportive of fiat currency. And it will, at least for a while.
Eventually, probably sooner than later, you end up with asset prices back down to pre-1980 levels and seriously pissed off people natively understanding that they were tricked into going into debt and loading up on assets – and losing everything when “they” pulled the pin and stopped the music.
Bankers and politicians will argue that unforeseen and uncontrollable market forces are to blame – and not the banking institutions themselves. The political response to that will be – “If they get a bailout, then we get a bailout.” Then what? Tough love and a sanctimonious speech about belt tightening? While trading desks are making a killing shorting pension fund assets?
Unless the central banks can generate inflation and growth, it is game-over for Western governments. Some of you are saying “collapse” and that may be what happens. Others are saying “hyperinflation” or “currency oblivion” and that is the most likely path forward in my view. Others think that there can be decades of pain on Main Street with collapsing assets and incomes and strengthening currency and government bonds. That is the one scenario that simply cannot happen. Despite the fantasies of a very small handful of rich people who think they’ll be able to take advantage of the misfortune of others.
Just imagine President Obama – or whomever succeeds him – going on television to announce to the American People – “Sorry folks, but all that money you invested in stocks and mutual funds and insurance policies is gone. You got tricked fair and square, and now its time to move on. And, by the way, you’re still responsible for any debts owed to banks and to the IRS”
Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.
+144 ~ poetic.
let me not to the marriage of madcow minds admit impediments ....
fantastic insights, Madcow.
Apparently he does not think the people are pissed?
Or that the masses are too stupid to understand and that show biz rules all?
These thoughts usually result in loss of power or all out fascism.
Yeah Right. The Free Market solved everything problem in the world up to the minute before the markets crashed. From that point on it was the government's fault. You can't get more naive than that.Life was so good for the average American in the good old "Free Market Days" before 1913 that they decided to charter the Fed and settle a very old story regarding central banking in the US. Keep in mind the US was patterning itself after what it considered to be the iconic success story of the Bank of England with its central authority to regulate monetary policy and currency. HA! What did Americans know? Nothing! So in the spirit of the glaring success of the repeal of Glass-Steagall, let's uncharter the Fed and let the markets be as free and unfettered as the market for hookers on Canal Street. Let's have capos instead of the Fed. Let's go back to having "investment pools and trusts" like in the late 1920s where rich guys could sell stock to one another in order to pump and dump. Maybe we should abolish legal marriage so that people could be free to couple and procreate as they please without STD tests. Free.
If you love something set it free. If it doesn't return to you, then it was never meant to be. -Late 20th century American college poster philosophy.
And freedom, that's just some people talkin'. Your prison is walkin' through this world all alone. -Chicago, Desperado
We didn't have a free market before Obama either. If we did Fannie and Freddie never would have existed in the first place to use just one example. BTW The Eagles not Chicago did Desperado.
ChopShop, you've outdone yourself. I am in awe.
"Privatize health care..."
Complete corporate control over health care would make the Nazi's look like Florence Nightingale.
Look, until BO and hte rest of his ilk realize that the 'hardworking' americans he wants to continually prop up are by and large lazy scum talking on cell phones they can't afford, playing games on wii, ps3, and xbox instead of contributing ANYTHING, scammers who 'borrowed' knowing full well they would never pay back, and spending every waking minute gaming the system, with no intention of ever being more than another worthless, carried POS, there is no hope of real change. These idiot politicians cant even tell the worst of american society to shape up and get off their asses, no way they are ever gonna clean anything else up. For all the bitching about politicians, i blame the media for making it impossible to accurately describe anything in this country without being labeled for hate speech, lack of compassion, racist, or some other bs. You can't fix what is prohibited for being discussed openly.
Obama hasn't changed his tune one iota...The Three Blind Mice (Obama, Pelosi, and Reid) were out there today with both middle fingers in the air to the American People, flaunting how they're going full speed ahead with healthcare...fuckin' dopes.
Could The Three Blind Mice end up triggering a massive tax revolt?
"Could The Three Blind Mice end up triggering a massive tax revolt?"
I sure as hell hope so.
Otherwise, we, the people, are well and truly screwed for for the foreseeable future.
Unfortunately, I have little faith in the idea that the herd possesses enough wit to understand not only why sheep need a shepherd- but the insight to understand why said shepherd is fattening them up.
It could have been one sentence....
Americans....going forward....there will only be a single 15% consumption tax....collected and controlled by the states...
Good night....and the chips fall where they may....
.....................................
If one were to implement a simple 15% consumption tax only....no other taxes....and now move the clock forward 25 years....The CTax economy would be 100x the size of the current govt. path....
I challenge any economist or politician to prove otherwise....
I'm not for either party but thats all rhetoric and diatribe . Obama was right Its all Politics and republicans answer to any change is "no" even though he walked into Bush's shit storm and inherited all Bush's players and "heres GM" Bush told him "better not fuck this up first week in homey" Bush whispers in his ear.
Peaceful competition through free enterprise? Look, as Obama would say, There is no middle ground if things are screwed up you just want your party to be in control and blame it on us while the best capitalists win. They win not because they earned it but because they were better at screwing somebody else out of it using bought legislation and computerized weapons of mass destruction. Thats not "peaceful competition". They the Plutarchs/Oligarchs will always win "The People" like you, will never win. If you dont put money above life itself you're not even in the game but it doesn't matter because its a closed club and politicians are not invited to do anything but further their cause. The point being that if all one can think about is a tailgate party for their political team on some blog site , you really don,t get it do you? Same as it ever was. You'll make $x more than the next guy but you and any political party you choose will never have control over anything. You can only try to be more human because a political tool is to go nowhere in a circular motion. Campaign reform, campaign spending limits and term limits, and eliminating the phantom government of lobbyists are the only respectable political goals. IMHO.
Here this might work:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_qgVn-Op7Q&feature=related
Dude, get a grip. Bush was a big business lackey. Obama is a frigging socialist. The state is anti freedom no matter which statist party is elected by the sheeple.
Surely you must mean NATIONAL Socialist, which is the same as "Big Business Lackey". There is no substantial difference between the two as the last year has demonstrated.
ok, big government sucks.
But in the context that america has crippled itself economically by redistributing so much of the wealth upwwards that the middle class has collapsed and is unable to participate in a consumer economy, how do you suppose the wealth might be redistributed fairly to enable a resurgent middle class consumer economy?
I'll tell you one thing, its not going to be done by whittling away the government to a stump. How does a small government stop predatory capitalism from cannibalising its own workers and customers? It can't.
How about instead of debating big/small govt, we debate how to make a large government run itself as an efficient business instead of a socialist clique.
Think it can't be done? Then you probably think China is still 'Communist'
government cannot run itself as "an efficient business" and i will not even bother trying to prove the obvious.
it doesn't need to. if business cannot use government to create barriers to competition and create subsidies for itself, then it can only compete in the market, where it can only be successful by enriching the lives of its customers, not cannibalizing them.
Yea that sounds good in theory - but we've tried decades of low regulation 'trickle down' theory, and it has only resulted in more income inequality
sounds a little too 'efficient markets' to me.
The challenge will always remain to prevent government from distorting otherwise efficient markets and becoming corrupt.
And look- if a big government is corrupt - its just as likely to have become so from having too many ties to the free market as it is from an anti-market socialist clique becoming self serving elitists
Nothing will ever be perfect chief. Repeal of one banking regulation, does not a free market make. Nor does monopoly control of the counterfeiting of 1/2 of every transaction....money....by the Fed
What is SOx? Patriot Act? FISA. These are just the laws Congress created. How about the multitude of regulations and rulings buy unconstitutional, capture regulators such as the FDA? Why is hemp illegal, why is it illegal to label Stevia as sweet, while Monsanto, and Cargil will reap the the benefits of yet another govt granted IP monopoly.
What progressives miss, is that strict interpretation of the Constitution better protect us from human nature, by putting us in control of ourselves and our money. It also Decentralizes the system, so that one fsck up doesn't bring the whole damned system grinding to a halt.
I yield the soapbox
Yeah I will say it can't be done, big government is always corrupt and will help the few at the expense of the many. Are you saying that you want us on the Chinese model, their their rather significant corruption problem? I'm bullish on China and think they have a lot of potential, but at the moment I would still rather be an American Serf rather than a Chinese Serf.
A free market would sort out the wealth inequalities better then a big gov that will just aggregate wealth from the politically weak and give it out to it's favored few. You cannot have a big gov that is not corrupt in this manner because unfortunately it will be staffed by humans. If you know of a source of angels to run this dream I would be willing to listen to a plan.
big government or small government..it doesn't matter since we just learned it doesn't tkae anyone's approval to rob the taxpayer in the megabillions
and neither would stop the FED anyway
+1
great comments above but this one nailed it. good show, Squid-puppets.
Cryptome is paying attention:
CYA SOS: Banking Titanic Doomed by Iceberg Hit
Well I would love to have heard that speech. The only problem is if I ever heard any President giving that state of the union I would have either:
A. Be dreaming
B. Be dead and in heaven
C Slipped back into the real world from the Twilight Zone we seem to have found ourselves.
Socialism is a religion for losers. After two thousand years of failed Christianity, you'd think the idealists would learn.
The problem is twofold; most people never learn, and all lessons are forgotten form generation to generation. It's a shame that as a species we do not have a better memory of history. But we always fall into the trap of "It's different this time..."
Exactomundo! I only can wish that that had happened...