Obamanomics – Part I

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama gave his first general election speech on the economy yesterday.

In order to better understand Obama's economic thinking, you first need to understand two Marxist terms:

1) Bourgeoisie - the social class which obtains income from ownership or trade in capital assets, or from commercial activities such as the buying and selling of commodities, wares, and services. In short, the upper middle class and upper class.

2) Proletariat – the class of society which does not have ownership of the means of production. These are the wage and salaried workers. The working class and lower class.

In Marxist philosophy, the bourgeoisie and proletariat are engaged in a constant class struggle, with the bourgeoisie being the oppressors, and the proletariat the oppressed. This is also how Barack Obama views America, thus Obama's continual rhetoric about "social justice" and "fairness". Here's an example. When Obama sees Exxon making huge profits, even though Exxon pays huge taxes, even though the government makes more money from Exxon's sales than Exxon does, even though Exxon does not have a particularly high profit margin relative to other industries (just phenomenal sales), even though Exxon employs many, many Americans and provides them with decent livings, Obama considers it "fair" to take Exxon's profits away. In his speech yesterday, Obama dusted off the old idea of a Windfall Profits Tax as the mechanism to take away the profits of the oil industry. He wants to take the profits from the oil companies (the bourgeoisie) and give it to those who need help paying their gasoline bills (the proletariat). This is a restatement of another Marxist tenet: From each according to his ability; to each according to his need.

Note – For some reason, Barack Obama doesn't like it when people point out that his governing philosophies are marxist, just as he doesn't like being tagged as a liberal. I don't know why he doesn't have the strength of his own convictions, but I think it's time Obama stops running away from such obvious truths. The Democrats are always playing class warfare, so let's cut to the chase and call it what it is. I hope at least one person manages to ask Obama about this before we hand him the keys to the White House (but I won't be holding my breath. I know the mainstream media won't do it. They are Obama's head cheerleaders.)

One of the fallacies of Obama's Windfall Profits Tax is: If you increase the cost of doing business to the oil companies through a hefty tax, they will only pass that cost on to the consumers. Therefore, the Windfall Profits Tax will RAISE THE PRICE OF GASOLINE, which will harm consumers, and specifically HARM THE PROLETARIAT, who can least afford it. Obama would only be creating a new government program to restore what he took away with the Windfall Profits Tax in the first place, but with the following twist: Only the proletariat get to benefit from the government program. The bourgeoisie don't. This reveals the true intent of Obama policy – the redistribution of wealth, which is at the heart of Marxist philosophy.

Obama's economic speech highlighted the fact that Obama intends to raise taxes quite a bit to pay for tons of new government spending. Obama will reverse the Bush tax cuts for those making $250,000 and above, lift the Social Security payroll tax cap, which will be a payroll tax increase on both workers making over $97,000 and the companies who employ them, and double the capital gains tax, which will have a negative economic ripple effect throughout the entire country. Obama also proposes a $1,000 middle class tax cut. Obama's proposed tax increases don't come anywhere close to covering his proposed spending increases, but I'll leave that alone for now. That's a discussion for another day.

Obama ticked off a list of our economic problems at the beginning of his speech (high oil prices, slow economic growth, high foreclosures, a credit crisis, an upward tick in unemployment, slowed job growth, everything Bush has ever said or done, etc). But then, Obama turns right around and recommends the VERY WORST COURSE OF ACTION POSSIBLE for a country that is in a recessionary period – A LARGE TAX INCREASE. That is like adding a huge log to the recessionary bonfire. It is extremely irresponsibe from an economic standpoint. If I didn't know better, I'd think Obama was TRYING to bring on a second Great Depression. Someone needs to tell Obama about this disastrous course he's plotting. Barry should shelve his utopian marxist dreams for a bit and take a couple college courses on basic economics, because he doesn't seem to be in touch with economic reality.

Note – The college economics classes that Barack takes must NOT be taught by alleged economist/NY Times columnist Paul Krugman. Krugman's disinformation would only make matters MUCH worse. The classes must be taught by a real economist, one who, unlike Krugman, can add and subtract.

Obama attacked his Republican rival John McCain on the gasoline issue yesterday:

"At a time when we're fighting two wars, when millions of Americans can't afford their medical bills or their tuition bills, when we're paying more than $4 a gallon for gas, the man who rails against government spending wants to spend $1.2 billion on a tax break for Exxon Mobil," Obama said. "That isn't just irresponsible. It's outrageous."

I assume Obama is talking about McCain's support for the federal gas tax holiday, which is a gimmicky idea, but what Obama calls "outrageous" here would actually LOWER GASOLINE PRICES for consumers. This would HELP THE PROLETARIAT, and without starting new government programs. Soooo, what's outrageous ? What I consider outrageous is to pursue any policies that will raise gas prices at a time when they are already at an all-time high, as Obama is doing. Also, notice how Obama refers to a tax break as spending by saying McCain wants "to spend $1.2 billion on a tax break". You don't "spend" money on a tax break. A tax break affects REVENUE, not SPENDING. Obama's real objection is that the federal gas tax holiday will reduce government monies (anathema to a marxist), because those monies are left in the marketplace where government can't use them to engineer society.

I consider it almost a foregone conclusion that Barack Obama will be our next president, so we better make the best of the situation and get him up to speed in a big hurry. January 2009 isn't that far off. It's our patriotic duty.