Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Proven: Obama Is “Not” AntiBusiness

Ladies and gentlemen, you will be relieved to hear that Barack Obama is not anti-business. Oh, thank goodness. I was getting worried. Who has proven this, you ask? Why, The Economist that’s who! Indeed, it looked at all of the whining allegations against Obama and it dismissed them all. Observe. . .

In the past several weeks, the business community has waged an unseemly campaign against Obama. For example, Ivan Seidenberg, the CEO of Verizon, “accused the president of creating ‘an increasingly hostile environment for investing and job creation’,” and the Chamber of Commerce complains that Obama “vilifies industries.”

But they probably never supported him.

Of course, GE CEO Jeff Immelt did. He’s a big-business socialist hack who pimped hard for Obama. He now says this administration “is not in sync with entrepreneurs.” The Business Roundtable, a crony capitalist group, loves ObamaCare, but they just published a 49-page list of Obama policies that inhibit economic growth. And let us not forget evil hedge fund crook Dan Loeb, an Obama donor and former classmate of Obama’s, who is circulating a letter accusing Obama of undermining free-market capitalism and the rule of law.

But do they have a case? Heck no, says The Economist. Here’s why:

First, Obama always said he favors a “mixed capitalist economy.” Thus, The Economist says, it’s not valid to argue that he’s anti-business when he has never hidden this fact before. Apparently, logic escapes The Economist.

Secondly, corporate America should really be upset at Bush. The incursion in the financial industry and the recession both began under Bush. Therefore, the blame rightly lies with Bush. Forget that Obama had two years to fix this (and the Democrats had six) and that he spent trillions of dollars. . . all of which clearly appears to have been wasted.

Third, corporate America deserves the blame itself! After all, it was evil “corporate America, in the shape of Wall Street banks, that was largely to blame for the depth of the recession.” Finger pointing. . . the answer of a loser bereft of ideas, e.g. The Economist. Of course, The Economist concedes, Obama didn’t have to vilify business so much, but “some shame was surely in order.” Wow, so demonizing is now good economic policy?

Fourth, it’s not like Obama ignores business. He did make some vague promises in his State of the Union. . . forget that he hasn’t kept them. He did pledge to return GM and Chrysler to private ownership “quickly” . . . forget that this won’t happen for decades. And he did create a committee “to propose ideas for promoting more innovation.” One single committee? Oh, and forget that one committee member says “the administration is doing more talking than listening, and several of us are already worried we’ve been suckered into a PR exercise.”

Fifth, business is upset about “uncertainty,” but it’s not Obama’s fault. For example, they asked him to “kill some of the more alarming reform proposals” in financial reform. He did that by “punting the proposals on to regulators.” So it’s not fair to blame him for creating uncertainty because business itself asked for it. Of course, this shows that The Economist doesn’t understand our government because Obama had no power to do this. Congress passed financial reform, which was always headed to the regulators. All Obama did was sign the reform and the rest happened automatically. Moreover, it’s illogical to say Obama can’t be blamed. They wanted parts of the bill killed. Obama didn’t do that. Instead, he left those parts in and just put the issue off by letting the regulators handle it. Thus, not only did he not kill the provisions, he injected uncertainty.

Continuing with uncertainty, The Economist claims he can’t be blamed for uncertainty in fuel prices because Republicans stopped cap and trade, which is a nonsensical argument. Cap and trade was not going to reduce fuel costs or make the commodities market less uncertain. Moreover, Obama can be blamed for uncertainty if he keeps saying that he’s going to keep trying to do bad things.

And The Economist claims business can’t blame him for the uncertainty about whether or not the Bush tax cuts will expire because they’re only returning to the levels they were at under Clinton, “which was hardly a terrible for business.” Which is another nonsensical argument that ignores that Obama’s dithering is causing the uncertainty. Do it or don’t, but don’t drag the decision out for two years.

Sixth, Obama can’t be blamed for the deficit because of the “nasty, mostly inherited fiscal problem.” And this requires taxes to fix, so business should just shut up. Of course, The Economist ignores that the deficit went from $200 billion to $400 billion under Bush to $1.3 trillion under Obama. That’s on Obama.

Seventh, business complains about ObamaCare, but they favored reform, so again just shut up you whiners. Think about this one. According to The Economist, if you’ve ever advocated fixing something, then you can’t complain about anyone else’s solution. Ridiculous.

Eighth, counterattack: the only reason business is really complaining about Obama is “their failure to create jobs in America coincides with earning huge profits and sitting on record amounts of cash.” Ah hah! Villains! Of course, this is ridiculous. They don’t owe anyone a job, and the fact that they could spend their profits creating jobs doesn’t mean they should or that it’s a good idea. Nor does it mean that their concerns are in any way invalid. Moreover, it’s asinine to attack the accusers when you’re supposed to be providing an analysis of Obama’s policies. This is called blaming the victim and it’s something liberals are very good at. . . and even better at whining about.

The Economist is a great source of amusement these days, but don’t take anything they say seriously: their analysis is biased, weak, illogical and ignorant of economic principles, and their facts are generally shaded and selectively incomplete. Sad.

20 comments:

Tennessee Jed said...

Those are the lamest, silliest excuses I have ever read. Their argument reads like a 6th grade debate summation in it's lack of logic. It is fascinating that one can look far and wide and not find a spirited defense of the left. Of course, I don't read "The Nation." But this is the magazine Katie Couric says she reads after trying to embarrass Sarah Palin's reading habits. No wonder nobody watches her newscasts

AndrewPrice said...

Jed, That was my feeling exactly. When I saw the article, my first thought was -- "ok, this will be interesting to see what they've come up with." By the time I was finished, I was thinking, "you've got to be kidding me. This reads like a child wrote it!"

It's really sad to see what The Economist has come to, especially from being such an esteemed magazine at one point.

And you're right, the left has been unable to put up any defense to his defects. All they do is say things like this, which sound a lot like "nuh uh" and "it's everyone else's fault."

StanH said...

Barry is a devoted enemy of the Free Market. He has even described private enterprise as the enemy in his five minute career, working for an organization that has to watch the bottom line. The rabble that gathered, and trashed the Mall on 11/2/10 is Barry’s real constituency, good for nothing ne’er-do-wells who exist to take, and never give. He despises the Free Market. We are in heap big trouble, until which time Barry’s sent packing. The Economist, has been a liberal mouthpiece for some time, no surprise there, they should change their name to The Keynesian, that works, more better.

AndrewPrice said...

Stan, Even more, he has stated clearly that he thinks profit is evil, and he's made it clear that he thinks the purpose of business is to provide jobs, not to provide things consumers want and to make money for the owners.

You're right about The Economist too, they've been slipping further and further to the daffy left year after year. What's worse, their analysis has turned to garbage -- it's not even good leftist analysis, it's all weak and pointless. I could do a better job defending Obama.

Notawonk said...

dissecting barry for dummies. there's a book worth printing...

and all i heard in mah head as i read this: BUSH, BUSH, BUSH! (a play on the brady bunch's: marsha, marsha, marsha!)

AndrewPrice said...

Patti, I could see that. In fact, it was amazing how many times the article went back to "look what Bush did!"

Frankly, I'd be embarrassed as all heck if all my defenders could say was -- other people are worse!

T_Rav said...

Obama might, as The Economist says, desire a "mixed-capitalist system," but only in the sense that he's constantly trying to split the difference between capitalism and communism--that vague, semi-intellectual strain of thinking known as Third Way. The problem is that it's an ideology founded on the premise that there is such a thing as a free lunch--that you don't have to have X at the expense of Y. Not only is this naive, but it generally leads to ever-greater reliance on government action and regulation, in the hope that if you can make just one more adjustment, then suddenly the happy mean will be achieved and socioeconomic harmony will ensue. Ever since I saw Obama's health care ads when he was campaigning in '08, I've had little doubt that he sees the world exactly this way.

AndrewPrice said...

T_Rav, Very true. The left only looks at one side of the economic equation. . . "we need to boost spending, so let's spend more." They never consider that there is a set off, with one exception. They view the entire economic pie as a zero sum game where one winner must have one loser -- which absolutely not true.

And you're right about the spiral of regulation. They impose regulations to fix a problem and then need more regulations to fix the problem the regulations caused, etc. That's why areas like education and health care get so messed up -- they are constantly imposing new regulations to fix the damage done by the prior regulations.

But they can never see that because they're short term thinkers and they only look at the one side of the equation. . . "if we just do this, it will fix the problem."

Ed said...

It's no wonder he's in trouble if this is the best they could do. I love how they thing business owes Obama jobs.

CrispyRice said...

Patty, LOL @ "Bush, Bush, Bu-uuusssh!!"

That is really a pathetic article from The Economist, Andrew.

AndrewPrice said...

Ed, You mean they don't owe Obama jobs? But isn't that all business is about? Producing jobs to prop up Obama's government schemes? You must be one of them thar capitalists!

AndrewPrice said...

Crispy, It is very pathetic, but it's also become par for the course with them. That's why I keep toying with canceling it. I would be ashamed if I were the editor.

Ed said...

Confirmed capitalist! Socialism kills.

Anonymous said...

Andrew: I've been calling The Economist "The Social Engineering Journal" for at least a decade now. I used to enjoy their perspective on outbreaks of occasional British capitalism, but they've become fewer and farther between. As the English government drifts slowly to the right, they needed a new social engineering champion, and they found it in Barack Obama.

AndrewPrice said...

Ed, Yes it does, and it pollutes and destroys. There is nothing socialism can't destroy. But that doesn't matter to it's idiot followers because they all think they can run it "the right way" unlike all those millions of others who tried and failed.

AndrewPrice said...

Lawhawk, I don't think they know what to make of the new government in Britain. They seem nostalgic already for Labor. And yep, they seem to have found a new love on our side of the Atlantic.

JB1000 said...

This isn't bad logic, it is a faulty process. They decided on their conclusion then tried to warp, bend, fold or chisel the facts to support. This is simply the best they could manage with the bad facts they had at their disposal.

AndrewPrice said...

JB1000, Excellent point! That would very much explain their analysis. It does feel like they knew the points they had to address, they knew the result they wanted to reach, and then they did their best to squeeze in whatever they could to justify their conclusion.

And since they don't have any good facts to rely upon, a lot of their "analysis" feels like they are reaching for straws or it has a distinct flavor of "just because."

All in all, this is not what I would expect from anyone who is paid to provide analysis.

Joel Farnham said...

Andrew,

I wonder how many people buy into this BS?

It seems that the more Obama is exposed as a socialist, the more stupid the arguments get that he is not.

AndrewPrice said...

Joel, I think that clearly fewer and fewer people are buying into these arguments, hence the polls.

I actually think these kinds of arguments hurt their cause because people on the fence will see the weakness of these arguments and will conclude that if this is the best they can do to defend their side, then their side is failing. Moreover, people on the other side of the argument will gain strength from the weakness of the opposition, and supporters will be disheartened by the poor quality of their side.

In other words, they are probably better off saying nothing than making these arguments and saying the wrong thing.

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