In 2007, then-senator Barack Obama insisted that the coming presidential primary- and general-election campaigns “shouldn’t be about making each other look bad, they should be about figuring out how we can all do some good for this precious country of ours. That’s our mission.”
“And in this mission,” he continued, “our rivals won’t be one another, and I would assert it won’t even be the other party. It’s going to be cynicism that we’re fighting against.”
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I guess I missed the moment when Obama hung his “Mission Accomplished” banner. Because from where I’m sitting, it looks more like the president not only lost his battle against cynicism, he defected to the other side.
In his remarks this week in Osawatomie, Kan. — the site of Theodore Roosevelt’s famous 1910 “new nationalism” speech — Obama laid out the themes for his reelection campaign.
White House press secretary Jay Carney denies it was an “election speech,” but Obama’s own campaign manager, Jim Messina, touted it as one in a fundraising e-mail.
But such is the way of this White House. Facts are dependent variables, history the president’s Pool of Narcissus, reflecting his own glory. Hence, Obama cherry-picks TR’s “new nationalism” as a justification for his own agenda and proof that today’s Republicans are extreme.
After all, was not TR a “Republican son of a wealthy family,” as Obama put it?
Well, yes, he was. And then, he wasn’t. TR left the Republican party to promote his “new nationalism” philosophy and run as a Progressive — a “super socialist,” in the words of the New York Times in 1913.
As a Republican president, Roosevelt had been a “trust buster.” As Progressive gadfly, Roosevelt believed in making the trusts bigger, stronger, and more entwined with the federal government, orchestrated by an all-powerful “Federal Bureau of Corporations.”
“Concentration, cooperation, and control,” he explained in his acceptance speech at the 1912 Progressive convention, “are the key words for a scientific solution of the mighty industrial problem which now confronts this nation.”
It’s no surprise Obama would find the Progressive Teddy so reasonable. Nor is it shocking that Obama would fail to explain to today’s generation the true intentions of that “Republican son of a wealthy family.”
And no wonder Obama thinks that low tax rates in the 1920s were a significant cause of the Great Depression. Or that he sees income inequality as the chief problem during the 1930s — and today.
Obama would urge the conclusion that Europe's socialist system merely was managed by the wrong people who were not careful enough.
With folks like him at the helm, from all the most hoity-toity faculty lounges, the regressive project known as socialism will be much better able to avoid the mistakes Europe made.
Mike, ol' boy, let's say you made $50,000 last year and George Soros made $5 billion. Then this year you make $52,000 and George Soros makes $52 billion. In this case, "income inequality" has increased substantially, but that doesn't mean you're suddenly in the poor house.
If, however, you went from $50,000 last year to unemployed this year, it doesn't really matter how much Soros has hauled in, does it?
I have a state university education, majoring in graphic design... and I'm horrible at math. This isn't that difficult to understand.
That's well said. So when you lose your job and your income goes to $0, but Soros makes $3 billion instead of $5 billion, income equality has declined And by almost $2 billion dollars! Yay!
It's a spinoff on the Lex Luthor philosophy: "It doesn't matter if I fail, so long as no one else succeeds."
MikeB is motivated on public policy by an utter dearth of respect for the people he deludes himself into believing he cares about.
He believes that if income is not taken from the rich to give to the poor, the poor will have no other alternative means of subsisting.
And that's because he has so little faith in the abilities of the average person who are not as genetically superior as he is.
He was born with all the advantages, so he's a better person, and those who were born with less are consigned to having to rely on his superior genetics to get by.
It's a real "compassionate" view of humanity, huh?
I told you this very week that I grew up poor and in an inner city ghetto. If by "advantages" you mean anything except two wonderful parents, you're a liar.
Actually Sir, you dont have common sense and enough understanding of economics to realize that there is not a set amount of wealth in the world. One person's wealth increasing DOES NOT mandate that another's wealth decreases
You can't be so obtuse as to not understand the distinction. How does confiscating money from those who have to give to those who have less address stagnating wages and unemployment?
This is not creating wealth, it is simply moving money out of one pocket and into another. To believe this helps things is to commit the classical error of every second-rate economist.
Rob, we could have a long discussion about wealth.
If I pay a tanning salon $25 to get a tan, is the salon wealthier, or have I simply moved money from my pocket to the salon's? If instead of a tan I just give the owner of the tanning salon $25 to get myself the psychic satisfaction of knowing the owner of the tanning salon can buy lunch, am I simply moving money out of my pocket into the owner's?
You are missing an important distinction - choice:
1. The choice to pay for and actually get the tan is yours.
2. The choice to give the $25 and not get the tan is also yours.
I don't have a real choice about 1. paying taxes (which in general I don't mind; I want the Federal gov't to be able to function, but only within its Constitutional parameters) and 2. where that tax money ultimately goes.
If you and Bob and Mary and lots and lots more people give the tan salon guy $25, he can employ more people which gives them an income to buy other things. Plus it might make him wealthier - he can open up more shops, hire more people and pretty soon he can have chains of these things all around.
Few people are going to just give the tan salon guy $25 to do the same thing without getting something for it (a tan). Please insert any other business here that provides either products or services.
The more you make it expensive or difficult to start and run a business, the less people will do it, the less jobs there will be and the cycle will continue.
Forget about compulsion for a minute and just concentrate on the difference (if any) between "creating wealth" and "moving money from one pocket to another."
Mike are you retarded? Profit is what causes wealth, without profit you are moving Money from one pocket to another and that is merely redistribution, The pie says permanently the same size
In the *figure of speech* "create wealth", I'd say that...
"To create" is to build, produce, or invent something that did not previously exist.
And "wealth" is any thing that can be used to sustain and/or improve a person's life. A person can have a wealth of money or cows or knowledge or skill, etc.
A person who has built a profitable business (e.g., a tanning salon) has created wealth.
A person who trades money for a tan is not necessarily less wealthy.
Thus "creating wealth" is different than simply "moving money from one pocket to another."
... which proves nothing, really. :)
As for this Goldberg article, like relaxok, "cynical" is probably not among the adjectives that I would have used to describe the President's speech, although I can see it a bit now.
The focus on "income inequality" is more interesting to me.
If a teacher bemoaned the fact that his students' test scores were "unequal" and then proposed that 10 points be transferred from the high scores to the low scores, we'd think something's wrong with the teacher, right? Would that really be a solution to the problem? What next? How would that affect the students' future efforts?
... but I guess it would be easier than really fixing the actual problem (low scoring students).
(Of course a teacher is unarguably partially responsible for all of his students' grades. The proper role, if any, of government in everyone's income is debated.)
You know that MikeB has lost the economic argument when he wanders off into his philosophical “What is wealth” mode.
Even though I should know better than to treat you seriously, here’s. my answer.
Wealth is created when someone provides a good or service that they or another person values.
Note that almost all wealth is consumed, some very quickly, some slowly. A well built home built in a classical style might last for centuries. The food you ate today may have existed for just a few weeks and is now gone, the computer you are using to post, will last maybe a few years. The enjoyment of a trip may stay with you for a lifetime.
Note that I included services I provide to myself. So if I go to the gym for an hour, I’m creating a benefit for myself (a healthier body) even those I can’t trade that benefit with anyone else.
Because wealth is consumed, it must be constantly replenished and thus we must continue to work. The farmer must continue to farm and the rancher must raise cattle or you will no longer get your Big Mac. And you must do something of value, in order to pay for the Big Mac. The farmer creates wealth when he grows the potato, you create wealth doing whatever you do and then you exchange your created wealth with each other. You get the Big Mac and fries and the farmer gets whatever he wants and needs.
In your tanning salon example, the operator of the salon invested wealth in the tanning booth, and the actual wealth was created when you had the tan. But prior to having the tanning session, you had to create the wealth necessary to pay for it. So, both sides created wealth and then exchanged their wealth. You got whatever benefit from having the tan and that benefit would last until the tan fades.
Choices are critical to this discussion. Some things you must have to survive; food, clothing and shelter. Once those needs are met, you might choose to spend your time doing something that you cannot exchange with another but that is wealth nevertheless. For example, you might decide to read a good book. That is a form of wealth, in knowledge or enjoyment or both. But you can’t exchange that with another. Or you might decide to work more and buy a bigger house, or a new car, or travel.
When, a society is wealthy, people have more choices. But what determines a societies wealth? Simply put it is productivity. Productivity is effort plus efficiency. If the government artificially raises energy costs and thus we are less efficient, we will be less wealthy and our choices will diminish. If my electric bill goes up it means that I may not buy a latte, which means that the girl with the nose ring who makes it no longer has a job and can’t buy new clothes which means the sales clerk doesn’t have a job and so on. Likewise, if we take taxes and give them to people who are not working, it means that I have less which would go to someone who is working. If accumulated wealth is used to fund an inefficient solar panel company, that means that it is not available to fund a productive company.
So in summary, if we become more efficient and more productive, we will have more wealth which means that we will have more choices. You can choose to get a tan if that pleases you because you don’t need to worry about your next meal. MikeB is efficient and productive, so he generates excess wealth, which he exchanges for something he values (a tan) which means that his wealth is transferred to the tanning salon which now also has excess wealth.
Now look at the policies of the Obama administration and you should be able to see how wrong headed their economic policies are.
First of all, Mike, the salon (or the human being who own it) certainly *are* wealthier. But you're also missing, or ducking, the most crucial point. If you *CHOOSE* to give the owner $25, to buy your own psychic satisfaction, nobody on this site will object, I guarantee you. But suppose you choose, instead, to spend that $25 on something else, but then *I* come along and *force* you, at gunpoint, to give it to the salon-owner, against your will. Then I'd be Obama, you'd be a robbery-victim, and everybody on this site would scream about it. See the difference? It's not really all that complicated.
Forget about compulsion for a minute and just concentrate on the difference (if any) between "creating wealth" and "moving money from one pocket to another."
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