Obamanomics

American Thinker | Amil Imani | Oct. 25, 2008

Obama’s economic plan is a recipe for long-lasting disaster. Keep in mind that wrecking anything, as opposed to building things, requires very little time and effort. Obama’s plan is deceptively attractive, while in reality it is a huge wrecking ball that will capsize the already listing ship of our economy. Here is a partial list of reasons why. Judge for yourself.

Obama is proposing a trillion dollars in new spending. Where is he going to get the money, given the government’s present huge budget deficit? From the filthy rich and blood-sucking corporations, that’s where, he says. A terrific vote-getting scheme. But will it work?

Obama doesn’t tell you that in the present world money is like water. It flows to the lowest ground. And the lowest ground for money is found in places where it can make more money — not locations where it is seriously tapped by government. For example, Ireland where the corporate income tax rate is 11% and not the United States, which has the second highest rate in the world. As it is, one of the biggest reasons that many corporations set up their businesses abroad is the high cost of doing business here at home. Hence, a great many jobs are lost to overseas enterprises.

Obama doesn’t tell you that rich people didn’t get to be rich by being stupid. The minute they hear him talk about “spreading the wealth around”, they shift their money to safe havens where Obama can’t get to it. Like those hedge funds run by George Soros and other big Democrat donors.

Obama doesn’t tell you that much of the money invested in this country is from non-Americans, who do so not because they are philanthropists but because they believe in the American genius and our creative hard-working people who know how to produce wealth. Once they see Obama the taxman, they sell their holdings and move their money to safer havens. The result is that American company shares drop in value, companies won’t be able to raise cash to do product development, so they will shut down their research departments and layoff workers. Or, they simply move their entire operation, or parts of it, abroad.

The American economic genius is based on the principle of empowering people at all levels to succeed financially through their own efforts. The government must empower all individuals to succeed and not to take money from the successful and spread it around.

Keep in mind that the really rich, both Americans and foreigners, have the smarts and resources to escape Obama’s net. The ones that get caught in Obama’s net are tens of millions of small shareholders such as retirees who depend on annuities to live. These folks suddenly find themselves strapped.

With Obamanomics, pension funds of states, universities, other institutions, and individuals will suffer a major blow. During the present economic crises, retirement funds upon which the livelihood of millions depends have taken a two trillion dollar hit.

Obama’s plan undermines the most powerful motive for wealth production: incentives. It is the incentive that makes a person work hard to provide for his own and his family’s living, and secure his financial future.

Society after society has tried and failed the economic solution of “spreading the wealth around.” It doesn’t work. All it does is discourage hard work and reward sloth. It is suicidal to buy into that failed policy, and that’s exactly where Obama aims to take us. And in this dangerous scheme, he will have the House and Senate on his side.

The Democratic Party has drifted so far to the left that it can hardly heed economic reason. Just this past Monday, Frank Barney, the head of the Banking Committee, the same person who brought us the sub-prime rate and the housing fiasco, seeing Obama at the helm, crooned, “there are a lot of rich people out there whom we can tax at a point down the road.”

It is shortsighted and even dangerous to lose our cool in the face of present problems by placing our full trust in a charismatic inexperienced man who promises a great deal that he will certainly fail to deliver.

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