Campaign 2010 - Economy Poised to Take off if Republicans Win Big

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One of the realities of economics is a favorable (Conservative) Congress can always trump an unfavorable (Liberal) president and never is that more obvious than in the 2010 midterm elections. Obama has clearly staked his claim as the enemy of the business community, big and small business, with harsh anti-business and class polarization rhetoric and a Progressive agenda threatening income redistribution and regulatory interference in a broad range of business interests.

Anyone wanting to send a message to Washington need only vote Republican and the extent of GOP wins will dictate the extent of the positive economic bounce that may result in the stock market and throughout the business community. Seldom, if ever, has a sitting president run against the entire scope of the broad based business community that fuels the American economy.

Perhaps Obama had no choice because he relied on the far left and self-serving special interests to get elected in the first place in 2008 and as feeble as his efforts were to take care of the unions, health care industries like insurers and pharmaceutical giants, and the housing industry, he built a base of special interests with diametrically opposed agendas.

Whatever he did to help his Goldman Sachs base hurt his SEIU union base. His efforts to protect the union health care plans while trying to appease the health care industry left him with a phony health care reform that may extend coverage to the uninsured at some point, but assured the health care industry they could raise prices and premiums to cover any loss. By guaranteeing that unions could keep their Cadillac high cost plans he assured future health care would drive up prices for all Americans.

As for his so called economic reforms, his highly heralded economic reform program did not even touch the housing industry which brought down the economy in the first place. His hundreds of millions of dollar contributors from Wall Street not only did not even get a slap on the wrist, they got federal bailouts and record bonuses since Obama was elected.

To protect his contributors to the most expensive presidential campaign in history in which Obama and the Democrats spent well over ONE BILLION DOLLARS to get him elected, he had to create a straw dog to blame for his failure to keep unemployment under 8%, his promise not mine, in order to get his TRILLION DOLLAR non-stimulus bill passed. Thus the Republicans and Bush became the enemy.

Certain truths have been conveniently obscured by our young president and he seems convinced the people of Main Street America are too stupid see through the political smoke screen. He cannot deliver on his promises to his own liberal base because the nation and the world are rejecting the folly of a liberal nation dominating the world. Unfortunately someone has to pay for the socialist agenda and it won't be the socialists who claim to be entitled to cradle to grave care from the government.

Every socialist experiment in the world in which there is no capitalist base to pay for the program has failed, pure and simple. Nearly every country in Europe has had to elect a conservative government to undertake the painful budget and deficit reforms needed to save the nations from bankruptcy while gutting the liberal promises previously made.

At the same time, Obama has run against the Bush and Republican record the 8 years before he got elected and forgets to mention the Democrats under Pelosi, not the Republicans, controlled the House the last two Bush years and approved the record deficits. During the entire 8 years many Democrats had to vote with the GOP in order for the depending to happen. In fact during the entire Bush years Republicans never had control like Obama did the last two years with huge majorities in the House and Senate, yet Bush always got the Democrats to approve his budgets and deficits and never whined about the Democrat minority or majority blocking progress.

A whole lot of misinformation has been thrown at the electorate in this, the worst year in campaigns in ages. It is a testament to the fact Obama made no effort to reform the campaign laws that give special interests more control than citizens and give campaign funds more importance than citizen needs. He owned the national agenda and made NO effort to fix the corrupt campaign mess we are in.

So we shall see to what extent the people were fooled by the politicians like Obama who has now taken his rightful place among the political establishment he is so quick to condemn. As I said, the stronger the Republican vote against the Obama agenda the stronger the recovery of the economy and the return to bi-partisan cooperation to solve our problems.
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European Socialism, the Darling of the Obama White House, Bankrupting the Euro

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With the near collapse of the Greek economy and subsequent bailout from the EU partners, the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and the US Federal Reserve for a trillion dollars, the nations of Europe might get to catch their collective breath.

If ever there was a need for a clear symbol on what would happen if the Obama redistribution of wealth program got adopted, this is it. Greece goes bankrupt from the deficit burden of the socialist promise of cradle to grave care from the state. Now we find out most of the members of the European Union have far exceeded their allowed deficit and must institute emergency budget cuts.



These are some of the key features of the European style Obamacare being sought by the White House and Democrat controlled Congress.

National Health Insurance
Nationalization of certain insurance, banking and auto industry elements
Nationalization of the housing and commercial mortgage market with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac already siphoning off over a trillion dollars in taxpayer money
New restrictions on energy industry and increased global warming and environmental pressure
Creation of a futures trading market with Goldman Sachs for industrial carbon credits



There are a lot of other things they want as well but you get the general idea. Obama has often cited the socialized programs of Britain, Germany, Canada, Denmark Norway, Switzerland, Finland and the Netherlands as examples of successful socialized social programs.

For decades demographers and economists warned Europe that social welfare was doomed because of the aging of Europe's baby boomers. With most countries now achieving zero population growth, there are not sufficient youth to pay the cost of benefits to the baby boomers as they retire. Still the social welfare states kept adding to the excessive benefits over the years falling deeper and deeper in debt.



Now the nations of Europe face deep cuts and the first round of cuts came by reducing public payrolls and benefits, the least objectionable. They are not nearly enough to achieve the cuts necessary however so cuts to the social welfare programs are next and they will be painful.

Germany is the financial foundation for Europe and it is facing a $3.75 billion budget cut from it's budget. The only way to achieve it is with cuts to the nation's unemployment program, which just went through difficult cuts 5 years ago. Unemployed people under 50 years of age will get 60% of their last salary before taxes, and the benefit lasts up to a year.



Britain's new government is facing $8.6 billion in cuts mostly to government payrolls. Retirement ages to qualify for state pensions are being raised from 60 to 65 for women, and from 65 to 66 for men. The current system that allows people to remain unemployed indefinitely when not looking for work will change to require people to seek employment.

Funding for Britain's nationalized health program is safe for the time but is scheduled to increase each year until 2015. The current $360 payment to families for every newborn, intended to encourage a higher birth rate but largely unsuccessful throughout Europe will be eliminated and child tax credits reduced.



In France people can now retire at age 60 with 50% of their annual salary. The French intend to raise the retirement age like Britain and are bracing for massive union opposition like occurred in Greece.

Spain is cutting billions of dollars in state salaries next month and the socialist government has frozen increases in pensions for cost of living increases for the next two years. Assistance payments for disabled people is being cut by $375 million, the new baby bonus of $3,124.35 per baby is eliminated and the retirement age for men is being raised from 65 to 67.



Denmark and other Nordic countries have the world's highest taxes and most generous cradle to grave benefits and have moved fastest to address long term needs. As a result they also have the lowest unemployment rates and most generous benefits. Norway, whose benefits are fully funded with oil revenues, has the lowest jobless rate in Europe at 3%.

Southern European countries have the most trouble. In Greece civil servants earning over $3,750 per month will lose two extra months of salary now being paid, one at Christmas and another between Easter and summer vacation. They now have to contribute to pensions for 40 years instead of 37 and early retirement cannot be taken before age 60.



To make their cuts Portugal is raising income, corporate and sales taxes, unemployment benefits will be cut and out-of-work must accept any job that pays 10% more than they earn on unemployment.

German public education, which was free until 2005, now allows tuition fees of up to $1,250 per year. All German students pay no more than that to attend state funded universities, including the most elite schools.



The most expensive and elite universities in Britain like Cambridge, charge $4,720 per year which is far less than the elite USA schools like Harvard that charge $35,000 per year.

These are just some of the problems being faced by the social welfare states of Europe and by the way, yes, through the Federal Reserve we are helping to bail out these countries for their excessive socialist spending. Does Obama really think after we underwrite the bailout of the European socialist nations and their failures in redistributing wealth, will we really have any wealth left to redistribute?

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