Amidst polls showing flagging public support, the Obama Administration has decided to address the one poll, among all others, that will determine Obama’s political future: the unemployment rate. As Scott Rasmussen points out, the unemployment rate has a lot to say in deciding a President’s popularity rating and election results – which is probably why Obama announced he would hold a jobs summit with small business representatives among others.
Speeches and photo-ops, however, won’t change the fact that Obama’s policies are anti-capitalist and therefore anti-job and anti-recovery.
It’s important to note that the secret to capitalism is not all that secret. It’s right there in the name CAPITALism. Our system relies on:
- Step 1. The ability of some to aggregate enough capital, i.e. save money, so that they can . . .
- Step 2. Invest in productive enterprises, i.e. start or grow businesses which . . .
- Step 3. Employ people – people who . . .
- Step 4. Have the ability to buy things, i.e. purchasing power (critical in a 70% consumer driven economy) – which in turn . . .
- Step 5. Creates profits for sellers and . . .
- Step 6. Savings – and the cycle renews.
The Left’s political policies, however, are sworn enemies of that simple and effective economic process.
Most notably, amongst those anti-capitalist/anti-job political policies is the heavy income tax burden facing American income earners today and the impending Pelosi/Reid/Obama tax increase to support their Big Government policies. The Left uses taxes on the income earners in a political attempt to reduce the difference in classes and to raise revenue. As with most government programs, however, it has an effect that is the reverse of its intentions – not only does it not reduce class differences, it results in the collecting of less revenues than otherwise could be collected- and nothing should be more understood than that when it comes to why Obama’s policies are anti-recovery.
For example, let’s say it takes $500,000 to start a restaurant (which represents a conservative amount in the cities of California). If we assume two partners can earn enough in income to each have $250,000 to start that business – any policy that takes a significant portion of that money from those 2 prospective business owners and then spreads it, in the form of government programs or government rebates, among tens of thousands of people who don’t come together to start businesses, means:
- a) that Step 1 (the ability of some to aggregate enough capital) and Step 2 (starting a business) will not occur, and therefore
- b) the remaining steps won’t occur either, i.e. no Step 3 (little to no jobs would be created), no Step 4 (no increased purchasing power for any meaningful period of time because the payments are one time payments instead of paychecks) and no Step 5 (future profits for future Step 1, savings). And without jobs, there is diminished purchasing power and no meaningful recovery.
The excessive regulatory burden we face is another prime example of an anti-capitalist political policy. As if taking away savings isn’t bad enough, how about raising the cost of starting up the restaurant to $600,000 or more (instead of the $400,000 it could be) in the form of increased health care mandates, workers’ comp costs, ADA regulations, labor regulations and more? Obviously, to everyone but the Left, higher start-up costs means less business startups and therefore less jobs.
To be sure, there are many other anti-capitalist policies of the Left including Cap & Trade, the proposed Wall Street regulations, skyrocketing deficits and more. All result in fewer businesses, jobs, and purchasing power and ultimately no recovery.
So, in the coming months, as the Obama Administration purportedly turns its attention to jobs, so that he can politically recover – see if he turns his attention away from his political anti-job/anti-recovery policies and toward economics so that we can economically recover – but I wouldn’t suggest undertaking a hunger strike waiting for that restaurant.