Introduction: Reflecting Back Upon My Youth
When I was a teenager and in my early 20's as a minimum wage employee in the video department at a grocery store in the North Knox County community in which I still reside, I used to have a regular customer who was a registered Democrat rent videos from me. We were always very friendly, always poking fun at the other for what we viewed to be the others misguided beliefs on the direction our country should be taking. At this time, stretching from my senior year of high school during the 1999-2000 school year through the middle of the Fall 2001 semester in college, two presidents had served in the White House -- Bill Clinton, the Democrat; and George W. Bush, the Republican -- and while Clinton was in office, I complained about his policies, albeit I had not yet reached the age to where I had developed a real concrete interest in or understanding of politics yet; and she would complain bitterly about Bush. I recall one time that I appeased her by stating that the Democrats were stronger on the economy while the Republicans were better on foreign policy and national defense. It was always a pleasure to talk to this lady, and while I have not seen her in at least 12 years as I have not been an employee at this grocery store since late September or early October of 2001, she remains to this day one of the kindest, gentlest people I have ever known, even if she was a liberal.
Now that I look back upon the declaration I made about the strengths and weaknesses between the Democrats and the GOP -- the Democrats stronger on the economy, Republicans on foreign policy and national defense -- I realize that I had compromised what would become my core principles all in the name of trying to appease someone in a friendly debate. This was a mistake of youth, not resolve, for I was still maturing as an individual. Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, herself a member of the Conservative Party of her country, described the attitude toward what the Labour Party MP's attitude on the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait under dictator Saddam Hussein as "the stench of appeasement." Here below, you can see "The Iron Lady" arguing with her apathetic political opponents in the interest of preserving Britain's economic growth stemming largely from the oil pumped in that region, as well as her concern for the gross abuses against human rights by the Iraqi dictator, courtesy of Thatcheritescot:
Much like the Democrats in the U.S., the Labour Party of the UK is the party of weakness. It was none other than Labour Party Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain who signed the Munich Agreement with Adolf Hitler in 1938, foolishly believing that this would solve Europe's growing problem of Nazi Germany's imperial conquest. He declared that this agreement, this "act of diplomacy," would bring "peace in our time." But as we all know from reading our history books, and what you also know I love to say when I expose a leftist fallacy and mistruth, "You and I know better." Someday, I will attempt to change my patented axiom to something like, "See? I told you so!" but unfortunately, that is even less creative, less declarative, and less original than my current one.
There is nothing that the Left believes in politically that is as sound a philosophy nor has ever been implemented into public policy that ever worked as well as those of the conservative-libertarian persuasion. The answer for the Left is for people to pay in more each year in taxes, divesting themselves of the fruits of their labor, all in the name of social progress. But what has that ever solved? In the 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt won the presidential election in a landslide over incumbent Herbert Hoover of the Republican Party, and he was reported to have said this line with regard to Hoover's fiscal policy regarding the economy and government bureaucracy during his campaign (Courtesy of Wikiquotes):
"I accuse the present Administration of being the greatest spending Administration in peacetime in all American history - one which piled bureau on bureau, commission on commission, and has failed to anticipate the dire needs or reduced earning power of the people. Bureaus and bureaucrats have been retained at the expense of the taxpayer. We are spending altogether too much money for government services which are neither practical nor necessary. In addition to this, we are attempting too many functions and we need a simplification of what the Federal government is giving the people."
FDR may have been one of the two greatest politicians in U.S. history over the past 100 years; he certainly was for the Democratic Party. This was part of FDR's speech he delivered in Sioux City, Iowa, on agriculture and tariffs on September 29, 1932. This is truly ironic for a conservative-libertarian such as myself to read and digest because FDR was one of the most profligate spenders of taxpayer dollars in U.S. history. He ran on the platform of limiting government's role in the lives of the American people, and instead, he did the exact opposite by introducing socialism and the welfare state to the government and our society. Because of him, America has, since 1933, grown more dependent upon the soup ladle of government for its survival and posterity than ever before. He is idolized and deified by the modern political Left and despised as a tyrant by the Right. The Right is correct in its assertion the FDR was, indeed, a tyrant, though unfortunately many of its own leaders within the party of the American political Right, have fallen prey to FDR's legacy of manifesting more government than destroying it. This has been the trait with the past two presidents who were members of the GOP, and it is the case with approximately one-third of the Republicans serving in the U.S. Senate today, including both of my state's senators Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker, who put up weak resistances against the Democrats' attempt to ban assault rifles and creating a national registry for firearms. Just as damning, too, were their dubious votes in favor of the immigration bill that will grant universal amnesty to approximately 30 million illegal aliens and create that many new Democratic voters.
I stated that nothing in the Left's political philosophy is as theoretically-sound as that of the Right's, but as I also concluded in the last paragraph by stating that 14 GOP senators, including those from my home state, voted in favor of amnesty, it again proves that the Democrats are far more efficient and superior politicians. All the party has to do is guarantee the government will make them prosperous, that they will take care of them, as long as they are willing to pay out more for their social and domestic security and forfeit their rights. There is an old campaign slogan that stated that a vote for this individual for president would result in every American owning "A chicken in every pot and a car in every garage." (Courtesy of America's World) Unfortunately, that was 1928 Republican candidate Herbert Hoover, a Progressive, who stated that. Upon the stock market crash on Black Tuesday in 1929 that initiated the Great Depression, FDR, one of the two greatest politicians in 20th Century American history, seized the moment to tell a partial truth in order to win the election. Of course, we all know then what happened once he was sworn into office: America became more like Europe.
What, then, has gotten the GOP in trouble with voters so many times over the past 80 years? Well, it is just what Thatcher accused her opposition Labour MP's of being guilty of promulgating with regard to diplomacy to settle the issue of violence in Kuwait and with the British Embassy: the stench of appeasement. Herbert Hoover was the first Republican president guilty of this practice, but then I question whether it was so much an act of appeasement or that of his actual Progressivism? America's World, the blog I provided above as the source of the Hoover campaign slogan, stated this regarding his politics pertaining to economic and fiscal policy:
Candidate Herbert Hoover's slogan of 1928, "A chicken in a every pot and a car in every garage" won him Commander-in-Chief for four years in the White House. Hoover's plan for America? Re-engineer America away from ferocious capitalism and risk and into the safe arms of Uncle Sam's central planning apparatus.
The result? It was an economic dive-- into recession and "Hoover Hotels". Monday morning quarterbacks understand that strong-arm central planning has its place--but its not in America. the text books usually associate economic centralized planning with Bolshevik Russia and Mussolini's Italy. Yet, as Hoover's slogan and centralized planning schemes were implemented according to his will, trade was destroyed, capital dried up, and ingenuity was stifled. Jobs were lost, industries destroyed, and ________.Surely the next president would understand the problem- right?But it was FDR whose inner counsel glowed with reports from Mussolini's Italy and the Russian centralized planning apparatus. They have no rich...and therefore, no poor. Feeding the masses--this is what they do through government planning and distribution systems.FDR's inner-circle was inspired. The Europeans and the Russians were going to teach Americans how not to starve and to make sure all comrades of the motherland could have their needs met----The people have to be fed. They must be clothed. They must be cared for. The state must intervene against the exploiters, the robber barrons, and the capitalists who are to blame for the stock market crash and "Hoover Hotels".With no chickens in pots and no cars in garages, FDR single-handedly turned a Hoover recession into an FDR Depression. More government control....more federal aid...more help from D.C....more strong-armed tactics against corporations....What Hoover had engineered with large government programs and interventionsist federal policies between capital and labor, FDR doubled in eight years. Huge government programs, tariffs, and federal interventionist schemes, dislocated capital, stifled ingenuity, and destroyed labor produced 25% unemployment.So what does this have to do with Senator Obama?He promises to re-design America "to be more fair for all Americans".He promises to transfer wealth from the wealthy to the poorHe promises to tax dividends and capital gains at higher rates than todayHe promises to hike income taxes on the highest wage earning Americans todayHe promises to hand out $1,000 to every American family from the profits of oil companiesHe promises to review NAFTA and free tradeThe Senator from Illinois is not alone in his promises. Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Ted Kennedy and the entire wealth transfer gang have been harping for such utopian change forever.McGovern's 1972 presidential bid uncluded free money to poor people in America. Hillary Clinton just finished promising the NAACP crowd $5,000 for every new-born baby in America. Walter Mondale in 1980 promised to hike taxes. Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and John Kerry promised the same shenanigans for the American people."LBJ all the way" didn't just promise to end poverty. Kennedy's Vice-president took the bull by the horn and jammed down America's throat government housing projects, welfare checks, food stamps, entitlement galore, etc..."The Great Society" and the expirement to eliminate poverty, disease, and ignorance produced 1 trillion dollars of debt and a destruction of work ethic like nothing seen before.With Bear Stearns bailed out, 400 billion dollar in bail out money for homeowners, and Bernanke's discount window for financial institutions to drink from with cheap money, what exacly have we learned? We have learned that Reagan's America, where individuals have freedom and responsibility to live as Americans, is being challenged once again.Will it be bread for the people? Or will the people demand their freedom to fail and succeed on their own at the ballot box this November? The prosperity of the 1920's found an end. Re-engineering America out of capitalism and into "no can't lose or fail" was Hoover and FDR's undoing in the 1930's.The fresh face Senator Obama promises "a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage" but shouldn't Americans remember the last time a President made such promises in 1928?Senator Obama, in an energy initiative speech, promises all Americans $1,000 each extracted from the windfall profits of big oil companies.In addition, the Senator is being egged on to hike taxes including on income, dividends, and capital gains. The Senator promises "to make America a more fair place for all Americans." In the heritage of George McGovern 1972 who promised free cash running for office, and Hillary Clinton promising a $5,000 baby bond for new babies born in America if elected, the Senator has learned well how to run for office as a populist democrat.The informed Harvard Law Review professor is a fresh face making a big splash in America. A hero to some, the post-racial hope to others, and an eloquent mystery man to others, Senator Obama delivers his message. What exactly is his message?"Change that you can believe in" won him the Democratic primary. A fresh face and big splash doesn't change the equation. Trotting out old liberal quasi-socialist policies of McGovern, LBJ, and FDR, are supposed to be positive steps this time.Hoover's governmental intervention programs all but assured a recession in 1929. FDR's policy-making counsel lauded Hoover's team for taking control of the American economy. What did FDR's team do? It proceeded to turn a recession in 1932 into and produce 25% unemployment, destroy capital formation, and dislocate capital from labor. More government programs, handouts, and federal help became the mantra of FDR. It took a world war to deliver the citizens of America from the clutches of FDR's socialist policies. And Democrats hail FDR as the greatest of all 20th century presidents?"LBJ all the way" gave us "The Great Society". LBJ's 1960's promises to erradicate poverty, ignorance, and hunger was not only liberal, but Messianic in nature. Welfare money at the mailbox for votes at the ballot box gave liberals the impoverished vote.And how does any of this history have anything to do with Senator Obama?The Senator promises to strong-arm Americans, capitalists, and the wealthy for sure. "The automobile industry needs a partner in the federal government...." says the Senator.The oil companies have made too much money off the backs of Americans. Big pharma companies ought to be regulated even further. Tax-paying Americans socking money away must have their divends taxed and their capital gains taxed. Waving his finger at all Americans to inflate their tires and tune-up their cars, the Senator explains that how badly he feels that gas prices have risen so quickly.Drilling for oil is bad...inflating our tires is good.
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In terms of the worst presidents in the history of the GOP, let alone in the U.S., Hoover has to sit on a throne of his own. Not only did he end what at the time was the longest period of sustained economic growth as well as in prosperity, the GOP platform, for up to 50% of the registered voters in this country, still is associated with the stock market crash of '29 and "Hoover hotels." Hoover had no confidence in the individual ingenuity of the American people because he did not believe in the virtues of the free market economy, and his policies reflected that; he lost in the end as a result, as well as the party's legitimacy for decades to come.
There have been other poor excuses for presidents out of the GOP since Hoover, however: Dwight D. Eisenhower, who when I read must have presided over a quarter of a dozen economic recessions during his presidency without even addressing the issues with tax cuts due to his interest in balancing the budget every year, which managed to do thrice. Richard M. Nixon presided over the first years of stagflation and yet continued to expanded the size of government regulatory agency, bureaus, and commissions through such wasteful endeavors as environmental legislation and the infamous price controls; let us, of course, not forget that scourge to our party over the past 40 years we affectionately call the Watergate scandal. Finally, since they are both members of the same family, father and son, together as one, there are the Bush's George H.W. and son "Dubya." Each man ruined America in his own special way: Bush I increased income taxes upon having pressure applied from the Democrats in the Senate in 1990 that led to another recession that saw unemployment rise above 6% again. "Dubya," though, was worse: while he did fix the economy after it had entered a recession during the last year of the Bill Clinton's presidency, with a series of three tax cuts, he did not cut a single public expenditure program; rather, he increased funding on public expenditures, resulting in what at the time was the most massive accruing of federal debt in U.S. history. Of course, Obama has already surpassed "Dubya's" public spending profligacy in less than five years in office, but he has decided that by implementing austerity as our new economic fiscal policy, he will somehow create more jobs in the private sector and cut as much as $1.4 trillion from the federal deficit in a year. Of course, with Obama Care set to go into effect whenever the president decides it is politically expedient as he has realized that is a "white elephant," I cannot foresee anything other than more deficit spending, albeit at perhaps a smaller level. The Congressional Budget Office sees it this way, too.
To read my analysis on Obama's 2014 Federal Budget calling for austerity, which the Democrats have twisted into it being Rep. Paul Ryan's faulty plan since he is a Republican, check out the following links:
Europe Has a Serious Unemployment Problem... and That is an Understatement
In essence, then, the only good GOP president over the past 80 years was Ronald Reagan. Thankfully, he was the greatest president during the 20th Century, and one the greatest of all-time.
Mr. Conservative: "15 Signs Jobs in America are Losing Their Value"
As I love to say the phrase "I told you so" whenever I prove someone wrong on an erroneous fact, or that they were incorrect as to how the implementation of a public policy would have one effect on the public when instead it wound up being quite to the contrary, I take no joy in bringing this article before my readers' attention. It comes from the conservative webpage Mr. Conservative, and it discusses 15 different signs that jobs in America are losing their value. The article is just below:
Trying to find a job in America today can be an incredibly frustrating experience. Most of the jobs that are available seem to pay very little, and there is intense competition for just about any job that is open. But it wasn’t always like this. When I was in high school, I was immediately hired when I applied for a job at McDonalds because they were so desperate for workers that they would hire just about anyone that could flip a burger. But in this economic environment, a single nationwide hiring event conducted by McDonald's resulted in a million job applications, and only a small percentage of those applicants were actually hired. Our economy simply does not produce enough jobs for everyone anymore, and the percentage of “good jobs” continues to decline. That means that it is getting really hard to find a job that will enable you to support a family, and a lot of people end up doing jobs that they are massively overqualified for. But when times are tough, people are going to do what they have to do in order to survive.
One thing that we have seen in recent years is an explosion in the number of “temp workers” in America. Even some of the largest companies in America are using them. They like the flexibility of being able to bring in workers when they need them and of being able to dump them the moment they don’t need them anymore. Sadly, those that work in the “temp industry” often work in deplorable conditions for very little pay. The following is a brief excerpt from an absolutely outstanding Pro Publica article…
In cities all across the country, workers stand on street corners, line up in alleys or wait in a neon-lit beauty salon for rickety vans to whisk them off to warehouses miles away. Some vans are so packed that to get to work, people must squat on milk crates, sit on the laps of passengers they do not know or sometimes lie on the floor, the other workers’ feet on top of them.
This is not Mexico. It is not Guatemala or Honduras. This is Chicago, New Jersey, Boston.The people here are not day laborers looking for an odd job from a passing contractor. They are regular employees of temp agencies working in the supply chain of many of America’s largest companies – Walmart, Macy’s, Nike, Frito-Lay. They make our frozen pizzas, sort the recycling from our trash, cut our vegetables and clean our imported fish. They unload clothing and toys made overseas and pack them to fill our store shelves. They are as important to the global economy as shipping containers and Asian garment workers.
Many get by on minimum wage, renting rooms in rundown houses, eating dinners of beans and potatoes, and surviving on food banks and taxpayer-funded health care. They almost never get benefits and have little opportunity for advancement.
But these are the types of jobs the U.S. economy is “creating” these days. Low paying part-time jobs are continually becoming a bigger part of the economy. This is one of the primary reasons why the middle class in America is shrinking.
You can’t support a family on what most of these part-time jobs pay. But our economy is not producing many high quality full-time jobs these days. The average quality of American jobs just continues to sink.
The following are 15 signs that the quality of jobs in America is going downhill really fast…
#1 The number of part-time workers in the United States has just hit a brand new all-time high, but the number of full-time workers is still nearly 6 million below the old record that was set back in 2007.
#2 In America today, only 47 percent of adults have a full-time job.
#3 Even though the U.S. economy created nearly 200,000 jobs in June, the number of full-time jobs actually decreased.
#4 There are now 2.7 million temp workers in the United States – a new all-time high.
#5 One out of every ten jobs in the United States is now filled through a temp agency.
#6 The U.S. economy has actually lost manufacturing jobs for four consecutive months.
#7 The official unemployment rate has been at 7.5 percent or higher for 54 months in a row. That is the longest stretch in U.S. history.
#8 According to one recent survey, 76 percent of all Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.
#9 At this point, one out of every four American workers has a job that pays $10 an hour or less.
#10 High paying manufacturing jobs continue to be shipped overseas. Sadly, there are fewer Americans employed in manufacturing now than there was in 1950 even though the population of the country has more than doubled since then.
#11 Today, the United States actually has a higher percentage of workers doing low wage work than any other major industrialized nation does.
#12 The U.S. economy continues to trade good paying jobs for low paying jobs. 60 percent of the jobs lost during the last recession were mid-wage jobs, but 58 percent of the jobs created since then have been low wage jobs.
#13 Back in 1980, less than 30% of all jobs in the United States were low income jobs. Today, more than 40% of all jobs in the United States are low income jobs.
#14 At this point, an astounding 53 percent of all American workers make less than $30,000 a year.
#15 According to a study that was released by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, only 24.6 percent of all jobs in the United States qualify as “good jobs” at this point. In a previous article, I detailed the three criteria that they used to define what a “good job” is….
#1 The job must pay at least $18.50 an hour. According to the authors, that is the equivalent of the median hourly pay for American workers back in 1979 after you adjust for inflation.
#2 The job must provide access to employer-sponsored health insurance, and the employer must pay at least some portion of the cost of that insurance.
#3 The job must provide access to an employer-sponsored retirement plan.
All of this is absolutely heartbreaking.
Once upon a time, just about any adult that was willing to work hard in America could go out and find a good paying job that would support a middle class lifestyle.
Now those days are gone forever.
But different conditions exist in different parts of the country.
What are you seeing in your area?
Are good jobs difficult to find?
Please feel free to share your thoughts by posting a comment below…
Written By Michael Snyder (H/T) To The Economic Collapse
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Conclusion: Is there a Conspiracy in Washington to Render the American People to the Soup Ladle?
These finding are astounding, and there is still the notion that there are approximately 46 million Americans on welfare at the moment, a national record. With poverty at a post-Depression high, perhaps higher now than during the Carter administration between 1977-1981, of course we are going to need government; they have got the American people gripped by the balls! More importantly, though, is that despite these bleak facts about the present and posterity that appears to be unavoidable if somehow Hillary Clinton is elected president despite her role in the Benghazi scandal, the Democrats still are claiming victory for what they believe to be a robust economy experiencing steady growth in the private sector. But what is robust about this economy? People cannot buy a job because if they wanted to, they probably would not be able to afford it! Also to consider is that if anything is robust, it is the growth in the presence of people in the unemployment lines! Do we need the federal government to take care of us? Apparently so, because they are on pace to create a nation of approximately 316,212,000 American welfare recipients -- the entire nation under the slavery of the government soup ladle!
To close, I will post a picture that will serve as a stark reminder of the days of the Great Depression. Herbert Hoover may have caused Black Tuesday, but FDR exacerbated it. He never fixed the economy, but made it worse. Somehow, in the midst of the worst depression in American history, he actually managed to drive the nation into a recession! Only an incompetent economic philosophy such as the Keynesianism the Democrats propagated could accomplish such a dubious distinction:
If it is up to President Obama, this is what America will return to. This was the height of the Democratic Party's popularity and the appeal of the Left.
