Obama Backs Off Smoot-Hawley II

Times Online: The European Union warned the US yesterday against plunging the world into depression by adopting a planned “Buy American” policy, intensifying fears of a trade war. ...“I agree that we can’t send a protectionist message,” he said in an interview with Fox TV. “I want to see what kind of language we can work on this issue. I think it would be a mistake, though, at a time when worldwide trade is declining, for us to start sending a message that somehow we’re just looking after ourselves and not concerned with world trade.”

The mere fact that Democrats are even considering this proves that the crapulus bill is about payback to unions and other Dem constituencies, not about reviving the economy. Anyone who's even mildly observant of economic history knows the disastrous effects of the Smoot-Hawley tariffs of the Depression and how they made a bad situation much worse.

No country ever went broke from free trade. Plenty have from protectionist policies that set off trade wars. Obama seems more interested in becoming FDR 2.0 and expanding government power than with doing things that actually work.

Be On The Lookout!

I never trusted those damn rodents to begin with. Now I know why. At least you could put his prison cell on the warden's desk where he could keep an eye on him.

Obama Worried About Re-Election

"President Barack Obama acknowledged Monday that the fate of his re-election four years from now likely rests on the success of the proposed $825 billion stimulus package. “A year from now, I think people are going to see that we’re starting to make some progress. But there’s still going to be some pain out there,” Obama predicted during an interview on NBC’s “Today Show.” “If I don’t have this done in three years, then there’s going to be a one-term proposition.”

That's right. And your strategy won't work because it never has. Republicans should just step back and let Obama and the Dems hold this bomb alone. This so-called stimulus is just a leftist power grab that will only stimulate the bank accounts of Democrat supporters and prolong a recession that would work itself out if government would just leave it alone.

And since they're the ones who got us here to begin with, Obama's bigger government "solutions" only add insult to injury.

Gee! No Kidding!

"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama said in an interview aired on Monday he worried that detainees freed from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo, Cuba, might resume attacks on the United States."

What was your first clue? I guess what sounds so easy in campaign rhetoric isn't so easy after all.

Moral Obligation To Whom?

Even so-called limited government, free market Republicans aren't immune from economic fascism. Here's Charles Grassley:

"February 2, 2009 (Computerworld) Layoff announcements by IT vendors came fast and furious over the past two weeks. But it was Microsoft Corp.'s that drew the attention of a U.S. senator, who said it was "imperative" that the company give job priority to U.S. citizens over foreigners with H-1B visas.
"Microsoft has a moral obligation to protect ... American workers by putting them first during these difficult economic times," Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) wrote in a letter to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on Jan. 22."

No, you idiot. Microsoft has a moral and legal fiduciary obligation to its shareholders to run the company in a profitable manner. That means keeping those employees that will best serve that goal.

What about all the ordinary Americans who own Microsoft stock through pension and mutual funds? Are they supposed to lose money in order to serve Grassley"s ignorant grandstanding?

Eat The Rich

An old chestnut of economic idiocy is being revived by the liberal fascists now that they are in power again. From Joel Hirschorn:

"Here is the solution that the overwhelming majority of Americans should demand: A law should be immediately passed that imposes a new special federal income tax of 99 percent on all income in excess of $500,000 annually for single taxpayers and $1 million for couples, starting for 2008 income. Call it a greed tax. Call it justice. Call it getting even for too many years of uncontrolled greed that has given the nation nothing but economic injustice and inequality, and given capitalism a very bad name. Call it a sensible way to raise federal revenues to help offset the cancerous national debt."

I've heard this proposal in various forms countless times over the years and it's always couched as means of "justice" and revenge as it is now. Never do proponents of this idea ever ask "Then what?

Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill (D) has also jumped on the bandwagon with a bill that would limit executive pay to $400,000 per year for companies receiving bailout money.

The fact that these proposals have almost zero chance of becoming law is beside the point. It is illustrative of the immaturity, short sightedness and simpleminded thinking of the left.

What will these geniuses do when these people decide to work and invest overseas and take their talents and money with them? High taxes and heavy handed regulation is already causing people and businesses to flee California, Michigan, New York and other socialist utopias. Billions of corporate profits are already in exile overseas to avoid one of the highest federal business tax structures in the world.

The left never thinks of these things because their ideas are so high minded that to them, pointing out reality is just divisive and proof of greedy counterrevolutionary thinking.

Springsteen's Phony Apology

Working class hero Bruce Springsteen apologized for selling his Greatest Hits album through Wal-Mart, a retailer that employs 1.4 million working class people. In doing so, he has chosen to side with the far left that says they love the little guy but really holds them in contempt - especially when they work and shop at an evil, non-unionized retailer like Wal-Mart.

Springsteen must hold all of us in contempt since he thinks we actually believe he didn't know who we was allowing to sell his album exclusively.

He chose to do business with Wal-Mart precisely because they offered him the best deal; the same deal that AC/DC and Guns n Roses recently took as well.

So I guess what Springsteen is saying is that we shouldn't buy his record at all. No worries Bruce.