The Nigh Seen Creeder

At least a half-dozen times during the 2008 presidential campaign, I stated unequivocally that B. Hussein Obama is one of the most economically ignorant individuals to ever seek the presidency. With each pronouncement on economic policy that's issued by the Office of the President-Elect, I'm starting to look like a soothsayer.

Yesterday, our soon-to-bee president said this 'bout the economy:

[O]nly government can provide the short-term boost necessary to lift us from a recession this deep and severe. Only government can break the cycle that is crippling our economy.

First of all, it was acts of government that got us into our current predicament:

The Fed not only kept the dollar too weak for too long, it was slow to react to when it became clear that housing prices were appreciating too much too fast.

Government regulators cajoled and outright forced banks to issue too many subprime loans; and certain members of Congress, most of whom were Democrats, steadfastly refused to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which was purchasing subprime mortgages from banks and encouraging banks to issue even more loans to folks who were never be able to repay them.

Dirt-worshipers in Congress worked to enact legislation -- the so-called fleet average rules -- that forced Big Three automakers to build unprofitable "green" automobiles at high-wage, i.e., union, plants. Thus, congressional meddling has been one of the biggest thorns in the side of America's automakers as they seek to return to profitability. Congress' solution? Force 'em to build even more cars that nobody wants. Makes perfect sense to me, don't it you?!

Too many members of Congress, mostly Democrats but including several Republicans who should know better, refuse to grab a bucket and endorse the drastic reforms that will be necessary to save the sinking ships known as Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.

I could go on and on. What B. Hussein Obama and his cronies need to realize is this: Ronald Reagan was 100% correct when he said that government ain't the solution to our problems, it is the problem. The government has enacted too many barriers to saving and investing, and the new Congress is hell-bent to enact even more.

Furthermore, Obama seems not to have read anything about what made happened in the United States in the 1930s and in Japan in the 1990s. In the 1930s, Roosevelt's New Dealers enacted dozens and dozens of make-work programs, none of which did a damn thing to revive economic growth. (Indeed, the United States suffered a recession within a depression in the late 1930s.) In the 1990s, the Japanese government did all kinds of Keynesian pump-priming, which included a lot of public works projects and a lot of deficit spending (sound familiar?). Japan suffered through a decade of economic stagnation, and economists there refer to the 1990s as the Lost Decade.

A wise philosopher once said that folks who do learn from history are doomed to repeat it. There might not be a bigger collection of non-learners than the members of the incoming Obama administration and the Democratic leaders in Congress. The fact that most of these folks are going to be in charge for the next four years means - and I hate to say it - that at least a little gloom is coming , if not a lot of doom.