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Obama’s Huge Hidden Tax on the Poor

In a world where everyone understood economics, I should never have to write this article. The effects of Barack Obama’s policies should be clear and widely opposed by the very people he claims to champion. What has he done? In a word: inflation.

From the stimulus to all of the “quantitative easing,” Barack Obama has caused widespread inflation. His most recent endeavor to fix the economy is QE3, or the third round of quantitative easing. Quantitative easing is, simply put, printing money.

What is so bad about that? Well, it makes more money available. That drives up prices and makes everything more expensive. This is particularly bad for the poor. Consider that gas was less than $2 a gallon when Obama took office and now it is over double the price at roughly $4 a gallon.

The point I am making has been made in greater detail by Anthony Randazzo at Reason magazine. However, I want to give a simpler analysis that still explains the his essential argument:

It won’t be a surprise to read conservatives lambasting this as unconventional monetary policy meant to help re-elect President Obama. And inflation hawks have already started screeching. But the loudest cry of “for shame” should be coming from the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Let’s get one thing out of the way first. Printing money is a tax. It is a tax that gives the government more money to spend and charges people in the form of inflation. That is simply supply and demand.

So, who does the tax hit? Well, inflation hits everyone who buys things. That’s everyone. However, it also increases the price of assets. So, if you have assets like gold, you have seen the price increase from $871.96 in 2008 to about $1800 today.

Assets help guard against inflation because everything that is owned is worth more. Today, we all pay more for gasoline and everything else, but rich people, who own a great deal more, have seen their assets appreciate. The poor, who own nothing, are simply stuck paying the bill.

These is the effect of inflation, whether we borrow money for the stimulus or print it for quantitative easing.

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September 16, 2012 at 10:53 am Comments (0)

It’s Government That Can’t Exist Without Businesses

In a recent speech, Barack Obama delivered the line that Mitt Romney is quickly turning into the centerpiece of the 2012 presidential campaign: “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that; somebody else made that happen.” The Obama campaign is crying that this line is being taken out of context. Well, you can see the larger context in the video below, and it doesn’t make Obama look any better.

The basic thrust of the speech is that wealthy people need to pay higher taxes because the government provides services for them. This is a common argument for liberal politicians because they are always trying to increase taxes. So, I thought I might tackle this oft-repeated theme.

First, it isn’t the case that businesses can’t exist without government services; it’s government services that can’t exist without business. Government may build some of the things that businesses use. However, everything that government has is taken from businesses. Without them, government has nothing.

Second, businesses rely on some government services because government regulations forbid the private sector from providing them. Look at education: Government requires it, forces everyone to pay for it, and then stifles competition by opposing school choice programs. Despite that, virtually everyone who can afford to pay twice for their children’s education opts to send their kids to private schools, even public school teachers. The public education system is extremely expensive and does an incredibly poor job, and that is the sad truth of almost everything that government does.

That is reality. We are all forced, by the government, to pay extremely high taxes for incredibly bad services. Then, if the government actually manages to do something that isn’t completely useless, we are expected to get down on our knees and praise government workers because they “made that happen.”

It’s as certain as the sunrise that when a liberal politician wants to raise your taxes, they will tell you how much you need the one or two government services that people actually use. They will threaten you and say that those services will be cut if your taxes aren’t raised.

When they do threaten you, remind them that your taxes already overpay for those services. Remind them that you pay excessively high rates for those crummy services because government, unlike the private sector, is a monopoly. Remind them that, for every government service that you use, you pay for a thousand others that are completely useless. Remind them that most of the money that you are forced to pay into each government program is wasted. Remind them that it is the politicians that should get down on their knees and praise you because without your money, they wouldn’t have jobs. Remind them that it was your work and your taxes that “made that happen.”

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July 20, 2012 at 11:03 am Comment (1)

Herman Cain: “I used to work doing econometric analyses.”

In this clip, Herman Cain explains his 9-9-9 further and gives us more background information on his work history. His statement, “Some people think there’s just pepperoni between these two ears,” is funny, but it’s also an attack on the strategy that the liberals are trying to employ against Herman Cain.

The left puts conservatives into two bins: stupid or evil: Sarah Palin – stupid, Karl Rove – evil, Ronald Reagan – stupid, Newt Gingrich – evil, G. W. Bush – stupid, etc. The object is to discredit each conservative with the ad hominem attack that is most likely to stick.

Herman Cain is a very likable guy. So, the left’s usage of the “stupid” label is all they have, despite the fact that he is a mathematician and a computer scientist. Herman Cain is easily the most intelligent person to make a serious run for the presidency that we have seen in a very long time, but the liberals hope that his lack political experience can be pegged as idiocy.

We don’t need another politician as our president. We need a serious plan from a serious candidate, and that man is Herman Cain. His plan has been backed by none other than Art Laffer, the economic advisor to Ronald Reagan. Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan is the only real plan for economic growth.

October 22, 2011 at 8:23 pm Comment (1)

SEC workers caught surfing for porn during work hours

Who would have thought that when they said they were “hard at work,” this was what they had in mind.

http://www.nydailynews.com/money/2010/04/23/2010-04-23_porn_among_daily_duties_of_top_sec_honchos_sez_report.html

April 24, 2010 at 11:14 pm Comments (0)

The Democrat Stimulus Plan Failed

In January 2009, the democrats made a promise that they would turn almost a trillion dollars into robust job growth. How well did the plan work? As this video shows, the plan has had a negative effect on job creation, even by their numbers.

Download the Democrats’ Stimulus Projections.

See the actual unemployment numbers from the United States Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The graph of comparisons of unemployment rates as projected by the democrats with and without the stimulus: The American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan as well as the actual unemployment rate as reported by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. As you can see, the stimulus plan was a complete failure according to democrat projections.

Now democrats are poised to takeover the American healthcare system, and we can expect the same kind of incompetence from their healthcare plan that got from the stimulus. However, the stakes are much bigger: last time it was your job, next time it may be your life. Vote for conservative republicans in 2010 and help to repeal the healthcare bill.

April 11, 2010 at 9:02 pm Comment (1)