The Great and Miraculous Obama

 

In a period of seven short days the master magician Barack Obama has done it again. A major disappearing act, one of his best as commander-in-chief of the War on Prosperity, has netted a loss of 221,000 jobs.

Last Friday it was announced that the Keystone Pipeline project would be “delayed” until after the election with a corresponding loss of 20,000 jobs in the short-term. Translation: Politics trumps the economy. He needs the environmentalists for this election cycle and, if he happens to win, this project is dead and the pipeline will be rerouted to serve the Chinese.

Last Friday it was also announced that Stryker Industries was laying off 5% of its workforce (approximately 1000 people). Why, you might ask? Stryker’s press release said they “will cut 5% of its global workforce by the end of next year to reduce costs in the face of new fees on device makers required by the U.S. health care law.”

And today it was announced that the auction for mineral leases for the Wayne National Forest  will also be “delayed.” Same translation as above. Several hundred immediate and an estimated 200,000 long-term jobs hang in the balance.

221,000 jobs. One week.

When we sum up this past week along with just one of the President’s other actions we come up with a shocking number. In July the House Committee on Oversight released a report stating that the unofficial closure of the Gulf of Mexico to drilling and exploration has resulted in the loss of 230,000 more jobs.

Total: 451,000 jobs lost.

As bad as this is, it does not even speak to the loss of $9 billion in capital investment (equipment). Do you think maybe our economy could benefit from someone spending $9 billion on equipment? Nor does it speak to the loss of $25 billion in royalty and tax revenues to the government. Isn’t there some kind of “supercommittee” in Washington searching high and low to find “revenues” to address the debt crisis?

These are actions of the President that he cannot say were “necessary because of the mess he inherited.” The closed for business sign hanging in the Gulf of Mexico belongs to him as does the albatross of Obamacare.

Umm…I…Uh…Well…I…Uh…..

 

Let’s just all agree that we have had a few of those times in our lives when a familiar name, a fact, or for that matter, the reason we walked into a particular room just totally escaped us. Brain lock, senior moment, call it whatever you like we’ve all had them. Unfortunately for him, Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry had one of those moments on national TV in a presidential debate. The pundits, comedians, and the press are jumping all over this in full force.

According to them “his campaign is over.” “He’s not a serious candidate.” No one from Texas could possibly be intelligent. Regardless of the likelihood of his getting the Republican nomination, I would like to offer 10 possible replies for Mr. Perry for future questions regarding his “brain cramp:”

“Yes, I definitely could not remember the third government program I wanted to cut however….

1. “…..I never claimed to have visited 57 states.”

2. “….I never tried to walk into the White House through a window, thinking it was a door.”

3. “….I never referred to a posthumous Medal of Honor winner as still alive.”

4. “….I never wondered at a press conference what the “Austrian” word is for “wheeling and dealing.” (There is no “Austrian” language).”

5. “….I never said “10,000 people died and a town was destroyed” by a tornado when there were actually a total of 12 fatalities.”

6. “….I never said on national TV that I bowled like I was in the “Special Olympics.”

7. “….I never signed the guest book at Westminster Abbey as “May 24, 2008″ when it was actually 2011.”

8. “….I never gave the Queen of a foreign country a set of 25 unusable DVD’s as a gift.”

9. … I never pronounced the word “corpsman” as corpse-man (with the “p”).”

10. “….I do not require two teleprompters to speak to a roomful of grade school children for ten minutes (not a joke).”

One or two of these responses would surely liven up an interview on one of the government media outlets, don’t ya’ think?

 

Redistribution of Wet

   

Here’s a simple little illustration of the folly of Keynesian government spending (stimulus). You need three items; two large pots and a cup made of styrofoam or paper.

First, fill the two pots about halfway up with water, place them 2′-3′ apart on a counter top, and designate one pot “P” and the other pot “G”.

Next, poke two small holes in the bottom of the cup.

Now, using the cup, take some of water from pot “P” and transfer it to pot “G.” A small amount of water will leak onto the counter. This is normal. Do this several times.

Now, ask yourself a simple question. Is the total amount of water now in both pots more, less, or the same? It is obvious that the total amount of water cannot be increased in this way.

In this demonstration, pot “P” represents the private sector, pot “G” represents the government sector, the cup represents the government, and the holes represent the amount of government spending. The water is our economy. The act of transferring the water represents the government taking money from the private sector (taxes), administering the transfer (the leaks), and giving that money to government agencies (pot “G”).

Keynesian spending only puts more holes in the cup and increases the number of transfers from pot to pot. The result? More water on the counter (unproductive spending and waste). It should be no surprise that Stimulus I failed. Stimulus II (the supposed “Jobs Act”) would fail if passed and the green economy spending has been a total disaster with billions (that’s right, billions with a “b”) wasted on crony bankruptcies and technologies with no future. Why has all of this flailing produced no jobs? More holes in the cup produce nothing.

How then, could you ever raise the total amount of water in the pots? Simple. Put the pots outside, stay out of the way, and just let it rain (American business productivity).

Oh, by the way, a new cup with fewer holes would be helpful.