Dear Friends,
It seems to me, Obama is prosecuting a war on prosperity, and it is going along much better than the war on terror. The assault on savers and people who do the right thing has reached a fevered pitch in his all out crusade. Not only savers but anyone who does the right thing, by traditional standards, is in the cross hairs of this administration. The upshot is that our economic outlook is diminished by the day while the power of government is enhanced. The continued attack on all virtue in America today, and around the World, should be at the front of everyone’s agenda, because it will lead to a lower standard of living for us and our children.
The war on savers is reaching it’s fourth year. In his campaign against virtue Obama has some powerful allies. The FED under Bernanke, has undertaken a plan to bankrupt anyone who saves for their retirement, by printing money at the fastest rate ever in US history. Every dollar the FED creates in it’s QE1, QE2, Twist and now QE3, (otherwise known in financial circles as, QE infinity), steals some of the value of every dollar in circulation. The incentives this creates are all pernicious. To save money today is foolish because the value is eroded daily by government intention.
As the fiscal cliff looms ever larger, we see that Obama is positioned to avoid all blame, no matter what. The unbiased media will dutifully point to republican recalcitrance despite their stabbing their own constituents in the back. The republicans are more than happy to attack Tea Party politicians but are totally unable to point out Obama’s failings. Apparently the leaders in that party are fully on board with the war on prosperity and will fall on their swords for it. We the American people have few allies and those we do have are being systematically marginalized by the republicans and democrats.
Now we are looking at a dividend tax increase. This further erodes the ability of Americans to save and prepare for retirement, as well as penalizes those who are retired, and have put sufficient money away for it. The ability of people to get some return on their saved dollars, is not only reduced to zero, the money itself is being stolen by the unending printing, reducing the real return to a negative. Those people who have gone without, so they could get a few dollars in the bank are the obvious victims, but there are far more victims than that.
As government’s policies create an environment where saving is discouraged… there will be less savings. This is obviously true. What the results of the policy to punish savers will be are not as obvious. When money is not saved in an economy the ability of companies to invest in plant and equipment is reduced. This is magnified by huge unending government deficits. Government deficit spending sops up the little capital that is available, especially as government gets the first crack at any money in the system, including investment from abroad. When money is not available for investment in productivity enhancing tools and equipment productivity in the economy will suffer. This will inevitably lead to lower wages for labor. Lower productivity leads to lower wages and lower competitiveness.
Not only are wages in an economy negatively effected the amount of labor required is also diminished. This is due to the fact that as productivity in an economy is lowered the ability of that economy to compete in the global marketplace is also diminished. Jobs move overseas and small businesses fail. The FED and Obama pretend this can be averted by lowering wages through the devaluation of money. The problem with this logic is that every nation on Earth is printing money at breakneck speed to keep up with America. This leads to a race to the bottom, lower wages world wide, and an attendant lowered standard of living for everyone on the planet, along with the very real threat of hyper inflation.
The class warfare rhetoric is the propaganda arm of Obama’s war on prosperity. Whenever a war is fought to win there is a propaganda campaign. Obama’s version of Goebbels is the entire democratic party. They speak in unison about the villainy of the rich. The irony that they are in fact the rich is totally lost on them. But the reality is, the war is not on the rich… it is on virtue. They would have to do violence against their own self interest, to make war on the rich, and psychopaths would never do that. The war is against prosperity and virtue… not the rich.
The spectacular increase in the food stamp program as well as the unheard of rise in Social Security disabilities are signs the campaign is succeeding. They show the magnitude of the war our government is waging on us. Those that work are being squeezed on all fronts. Our money is being taken right out from under our noses, our wages are being lowered even as we get raises, our job prospects are diminished by the results of the war on prosperity… and our children will have a much lower standard of living than we had.
Perhaps the best way to understand what is going on, is to listen to Obama’s hero, George Soros, (the guy on the other side of the teleprompter). It was Soros after all who said, “There must be a managed decline in the west.” The war on prosperity is the manifestation of that decline. The problem with decline is that once it starts it is very hard to stop. Sooner or later the managed decline becomes a full slide to oblivion. Then the full weight of government malfeasance will fall on the heads of our children… But in any war there are casualties.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
