Fascism A Socialist Leftwing Ideology: Communism, Fascism, Labor Unions, Workers And Students Exploiting ‘Crisis’

“We are socialists, we are enemies of today’s capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions.”  — Adolf Hitler, from speech delivered on May 1, 1927

As I have frequently contended, the fascism of the Nazis (as well as “fascism” in general) was a species of socialism – and socialism, as the belief that a giant government should usurp power to itself and take from individuals to give to other individuals, is inherently leftist.  [Here is a longer article another author has written detailing the inherent leftism of fascism and of Hitler].

This is important to understand as we see history repeating itself (“Deja vu all over again!”).

Gene Edward Veith, Jr. pointed out many of the elements that communism and fascism held in common:

“The influence of Marxist scholarship has severely distorted our understanding of fascism. Communism and fascism were rival brands of socialism. Whereas Marxist socialism is predicated on an international class struggle, fascist national socialism promoted a socialism centered in national unity. [And in fact, Both movements were “revolutionary socialist ideologies.” Going on,] Both communists and fascists opposed the bourgeoisie. Both attacked the conservatives. Both were mass movements, which had special appeal for the intelligentsia, students, and artists, as well as workers. Both favored strong centralized governments and rejected the free economy and the ideals of individual liberty. [And finally,] Fascists saw themselves as being neither of the right nor the left. They believed that they constituted a third force synthesizing the best of both extremes” [Gene Edward Veith, Jr., Modern Fascism: Liquidating the Judeo-Christian Worldview, p. 26].

What did the the communist “U.S.S.R.” stand for?

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

What did “Nazi” stand for?

National Socialist German Workers Party

Nazis “believed that they constituted a third force synthesizing the best of both extremes” of the right AND the left even as they openly acknowledged that they were socialist. So why have they so frequently been branded as “the extreme right wing”? Because the winner gets to write the history, and in the case of the European theater, the big winner of the war between the Nazis and the communists were the communists. And far too many American writers and intellectuals were significantly influenced by leftist thinking.  And these “thinkers” were motivated not by historical accuracy or by truth, but by the desire to create a “right wing bogeyman.”  Which they proceeded to do and let the truth be damned.

Both fascism and communism clearly and overtly labelled themselves as “socialist” and both claimed that the “worker” was their base.  Both rose to power using “workers” as their muscle.

And, as I will show, both socialist movements inevitably crushed the worker.  Just as all socialist movements invariably do.

Now, I have had liberals frequently assert that Nazism/fascism was not actually socialist and they have offered as their “evidence” that Hitler abolished the labor unions.

Let’s examine what Adolf Hitler said about labor unions:

• “I am convinced that we cannot possibly dispense with the trades unions. On the contrary, they are among the most important institutions in the economic life of the nation.”
• “Before everything else, the trades unions are necessary as building stones for the future economic parliament, which will be made up of chambers representing the various professions and occupations.”
• “As I have already said, the germ cells of this State must lie in the administrative chambers which will represent the various occupations and professions, therefore first of all in the trades unions. If this subsequent vocational representation and the Central Economic Parliament are to be National Socialist institutions, these important germ cells must be vehicles of the National Socialist concept of life. The institutions of the movement are to be brought over into the State; for the State cannot call into existence all of a sudden and as if by magic those institutions which are necessary to its existence, unless it wishes to have institutions that are bound to remain completely lifeless.

Looking at the matter from the highest standpoint, the National Socialist Movement will have to recognize the necessity of adopting its own trade-unionist policy.”

• “The National Socialist Movement, which aims at establishing the National Socialist People’s State, must always bear steadfastly in mind the principle that every future institution under that State must be rooted in the movement itself.”

And so what did Hitler do?  He did NOT “abolish” labor unions, as the modern left charges; rather, the Führer – having stated categorically that such unions were essential to his National Socialism – merged labor unions into the apparatus of the State.  Hitler created one mega-union that he was able to control:

“The National Socialist Trades Union is not an instrument for class warfare, but a representative organ of the various occupations and callings. The National Socialist State recognizes no ‘classes’. But, under the political aspect, it recognizes only citizens with absolutely equal rights and equal obligations corresponding thereto. And, side by side with these, it recognizes subjects of the State who have no political rights whatsoever.”

Which is to say that Hitler did PRECISELY the same thing that the communist U.S.S.R. did with labor unions:

The Communist Party exerted increasing control over trade unions, which even many Communist trade union leaders resisted. By the end of the Civil War a dispute over the role of trade unions occurred within the ruling Communist Party. Leon Trotsky, Nikolay Krestinsky and some others insisted on militarization of trade unions and actually turning them into part of the government apparatus. The Workers’ Opposition (Alexander Shlyapnikov, Alexandra Kollontai) demanded that trade unions manage the economy through an “All-Union Congress of Producers” and that workers comprise a majority of Communist Party members and leaders. There were several other factions. Eventually, all of them were defeated at the 10th Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) by the so-called “Platform of the Ten” headed by Lenin, which called for trade unions to educate workers, under the control of the Communist Party. Since these times Vladimir Lenin‘s saying, “Trade Unions are a School of Communism” become an indisputable slogan.

A resolution entitled About the Party Unity dissolved and banned any factions within the Party under the pretext that intra-Party discussions distract from “solving actual practical problems”. This resolution radically shifted the balance in the notion “democratic centralism” from “democratic” to “centralism” and enhanced the groundwork of Joseph Stalin‘s future dictatorship.

[…]

Unlike labor unions in the West, Soviet trade unions were, in fact, actually governmental organizations whose chief aim was not to represent workers but to further the goals of management, government, and the CPSU. As such, they were partners of management in attempting to promote labor discipline, worker morale, and productivity. Unions organized “socialist competitions” and awarded prizes for fulfilling quotas

Thus, both fascism and communism were rival brands of socialism (international socialism versus national socialism) which systematically dissolved workers’ rights after making whatever false promises were necessary to secure their cooperation.  Both fascism and communism were revolutionary socialist ideologies.  Both fascism and communism opposed the bourgeoisie.  Both fascism and communism attacked the conservatives.  Both fascism and communism  were mass movements, which had special appeal for the intelligentsia, students, and artists, as well as workers – which they both forms of socialism continue to have as their bases to this very day. Both fascism and communism fascism and communism favored strong centralized governments and rejected the free economy and the ideals of individual liberty.  Both  fascism and communism  were easily able to become militarized societies.  Both fascism and communism were inherently totalitarian and dictatorial.  And, yes, both fascism and communism exploited the labor unions the exact same way and then subsequently controlled the labor unions the exact same way.

What is most ironic is that the ultimate model the left points to – communism – has been more brutal to the workers than any ideology that has ever existed.  Joseph Stalin solved the unemployment problem by declaring unemployed workers indolent and throwing some thirty million of them into slave labor camps to be worked to death.  How is THAT kind of treatment for a “workers’ party”?

Communism versus Fascism is Coke Versus Pepsi.  Both amount to a slightly different version of the exact same thing.  And fascism and communism warred so fiercely with one another because both movements were competing for the same base of adherents using substantially the same arguments.

Why is this understanding important?  Because we’re seeing these same forces that gave us first communism and then fascism banding (perhaps “mobbing” is a better verb) together to produce the same inevitable results.  And in fact we have both the Nazis and the Communists joining the labor unions and the intelligentsia, students and artists in their Occupy movement.  And we’re seeing this happen on a scale that the world has not seen since the WWI (Soviet communism) and WWII (Nazi fascism) eras.

The same categories of people who reared their ugly heads during the worst periods in the history of the human race are rearing their ugly heads again.

The base of the Democrat Party is composed from the same base that has ALWAYS gone the most profoundly wrong before in serving as the useful idiots that ushered in totalitarianism.  And now they are mobbing together so that we can suffer the results of deja vu all over again.

Jonah Goldberg in his great book Liberal Fascism uncovers how liberal societies invariably militarize in their own way before they look to attack external enemies:

What comes to mind when you hear the word “fascism” – immediate responses are dictatorship, genocide, anti-Semitism, racism, and (of course) right wing.  Delve a little deeper, and you’ll hear a lot about eugenics, social Darwinism, state capitalism, or the sinister rule of big business.  War, militarism, and nationalism will also come up a lot… But very few of these things are unique to fascism, and almost none of them are distinctly right-wing or conservative – at least not in the American sense.

Consider militarism, which will come up again and again in the course of this book.  Militarism was indisputably central to fascism (and communism) in countless countries.  But it has a much more nuanced relationship with fascism than one might suppose…   But for far more people, militarism was a pragmatic expedient: the highest, best means for organizing society in productive ways.  Inspired by ideas like those in William James’ famous essay “The Moral Equivalent of War,” militarism seemed to provide a workable and sensible model for achieving desirable ends.  Mussolini, who openly admired and invoked James, used this logic for his famous “Battle of the Grains” and other sweeping social initiatives.  Such ideas had an immense following in the United States, with many leading progressives championing the use of “industrial armies” to create the ideal workers’ democracy.  Later, Franklin Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps – as militaristic a social program as one can imagine – borrowed from these ideas, as did JFK’s Peace Corps.

This trope has hardly been purged from contemporary liberalism.  Every day we hear about the “war on cancer,” the “war on drugs,” the “War on poverty,” and exhortations to make this or that social challenge the “moral equivalent of war.”  From health care to gun control to global warming, liberals insist that we need to “get beyond politics” and “put ideological differences behind us” in order to “do the people’s business.”  The experts and scientists know what to do, we are told; therefore the time for debate is over.  This, albeit in a nicer and more benign form, is the logic of fascism – and it was on ample display in the administrations of Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, and yes, even John F. Kennedy.  [Jonah Goldberg, Liberal Fascism, pp. 5-6] 

The Occupy movement is using the moral equivalent of war even as it uses outright war to accomplish its fascist ends.  As are the labor unions.  As are the students.  Of that group Adolf Hitler said:

“Nothing makes me more certain of the victory of our ideas than our success in the universities” – Adolf Hitler, 1930

The same people are up to the same antics.  It’s deja vu all over again.

The left is also constantly demagoguing the sense of crisis to continue to ram home their increasingly failing policies.  Goldberg again:

“The utility of terror was multifaceted, but among its chief benefits was its tendency to maintain a permanent sense of crisis.  Crisis is routinely identified as a core mechanism of fascism because it short-circuits debate and democratic deliberation.  Hence all fascistic movements commit considerable energy to prolonging a heightened state of emergency.” [Goldberg, Liberal Fascism, p. 42]

And of course we have the infamous words still echoing:

“Never let a serious crisis go to waste. What I mean by that is it’s an opportunity to do things you couldn’t do before.” – Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, November 2008.

And:

“Never waste a good crisis … Don’t waste it..” — Obama Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, March 6, 2009.

The left is plunging out into the very same dark and violent waters of class warfare that it has carried the world into before.

Allow me to re-submit the Hitler quote I began with:

“We are socialists, we are enemies of today’s capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions.”

What is frightening is that, apart from the admission “We are socialists,” it is a quote that could have come out of the mouth of Barack Obama.  Think about it.

Jesus said to us, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock” (Revelation 3:20) to a world that is rejecting him.  But the left is demanding in more and more shrill terms that we open the door wide for the coming of Antichrist.

The beast is coming.

64% Of Small Businesses Planning To Wait Out Obama, Will NOT Be Adding New Jobs (12% Say They Will CUT Jobs)

There’s the old conundrum about the wolf, the goat and the cabbage:

A farmer and his wolf, goat, and cabbage come to the edge of a river they wish to cross.  There is a boat at the river’s edge that only the farmer can row.  The farmer can take at most one other object besides himself on a crossing, but if the wolf is ever left with the goat, the wolf will eat the goat; similarly, if the goat is left with the cabbage, the goat will eat the cabbage.  How can the farmer get all of them across?

There’s actually a solution to that problem.

Now we’ve got an even more intractable problem, involving a healthy job-creating economy, a Marxist president and a Marxist Democrat Party.

This one is unsolvable, because unlike the above dilemma involving the wolf, the goat and the cabbage, BOTH the Marxist President AND the Marxist Democrat Party will devour the economy unless it is somehow taken away from them.  Like the goat with the cabbage, they will insatiably eat every job they can and turn those jobs into dead crap.  Like the wolf with the goat, they will kill the economy and systematically devour it until only bones are left.

We are still over a year away from getting the chance to save ourselves from this insoluble dilemma.

And here’s the consequence:

Little Hiring Seen by Small Business
JULY 11, 2011
By SIOBHAN HUGHES

WASHINGTON—The U.S. labor market could stay sluggish for a while, with small-business executives reluctant to hire amid the murky economic outlook.

A survey of small business owners shows a lack of
confidence in the U.S. economy. More than two-thirds indicated they do not plan
to add payrolls in 2011 or 2012. WSJ’s Siobhan Hughes reports. Photo: Justin
Sullivan/Getty Images

Almost two-thirds—64%—of small-business executives surveyed said they weren’t expecting to add to their payrolls in the next year and another 12% planned to cut jobs, according to a U.S. Chamber of Commerce report to be released Monday. Just 19% said they would expand their work forces.

This comes after a Labor Department report Friday showed employers added few jobs in June, and unemployment rose to 9.2%. The bleak figures joined other data showing the recovery losing momentum in recent months, which has caused many analysts and policy makers to lower their forecasts for economic growth in the second half of the year.

The Small Business Administration says small businesses, defined as companies with fewer than 500 workers, employ about half of the workers in the private sector. In the Chamber’s survey of 1,409 executives, conducted by Harris Interactive, small businesses were defined as firms with revenue of $25 million or less.

More than half of the small-business executives in the June 27-30 survey cited economic uncertainty as the main reason for holding back on hiring. About a third blamed lack of sales, while just 7% pointed to problems getting credit.

“I think it’s safer to stay on hold and not hire workers,” said Harold Jackson, chief executive of Buffalo Supply, a Lafayette, Colo., distributor of high-tech medical equipment used in operating rooms.

Mr. Jackson said he has halved his staff to 15 workers since 2009 and was unlikely to start hiring soon even if his business picked up. “I can handle a reasonably large increase in business without having to increase the staff.”

Many of the executives surveyed were gloomy about the economy’s prospects. About 41% see the business climate getting worse over the next two years, compared with 29% who expect the climate to improve.

The modest hiring plans of small businesses don’t make up for the job losses in the past year, when some 29% let go workers, far outpacing the numbers that now plan to hire.

As the wise philosopher Scoobert Doo once put it upon hearing dire news, “Roh-roh.”

Between ObamaCare and the massive $500 billion in taxes it’s going to take out of the private sector, along with the 158 government bureaucracies and the thousands of pages of regulations; between the trillion dollars in NEW taxes Obama is demanding as part of any debt ceiling deal; between the Obama EPA which is simply ruling by fiat and imposing regulations that were actually voted down by Congress; between the fact that Obama won’t let us drill for our own oil even as his green energy sends the cost of energy (in his own words) “skyrocketing”; between the Obama NRLB that is openly warring with companies like Boeing for creating jobs in non-union states; between the Obama Labor Department, which is putting together some 100 job-killing regulations to strangle businesses from further hiring as we speak; and between the Dodd-Frank legislation which will systematically cut businesses off from credit, we are pretty well screwed.

We can have jobs, or we can have Obama and his Democrats.  But we’re not going to get jobs until we get rid of the people who are demonizing the job creators.  And that should just be an obvious fact by now.

When America Goes To Hell, Rest Assured It Will Be Leftists Resorting To Violence, Too

Let’s see.  Union workers, students, anarchists.  Liberals, liberals, liberals.  Check, check, check.

You should seriously pay attention to what’s happening in Greece, because it’s coming here next.  And the same leftists that are rioting there will be rioting here.  Because that’s just the kind of vermin that leftists are, quite frankly.

The only difference is that there will be no EU to bail us out.  When Obama’s massive debts implode us, there will be no one to save us.

MAY 5, 2010
Europe Crisis Deepens as Chaos Grips Greece
By SEBASTIAN MOFFETT And ALKMAN GRANITSAS

Demonstrators smashed shop windows, overturned garbage bins and set fire to at least two businesses.

ATHENS—Greece’s fiscal crisis took a new turn to violence Wednesday when three people died in a firebomb attack amid a paralyzing national strike, while governments from Spain to the U.S. took steps to prevent the widening financial damage from hitting their own economies.

U.S. Treasury officials have been quietly urging their European and International Monetary Fund counterparts to put together a Greek rescue plan more quickly to contain the damage, it emerged Wednesday, as U.S. policy makers worry the continent’s problems could undermine a U.S. recovery much as U.S. housing woes hammered Europe in 2008.

In Spain, rival political leaders came together Wednesday with an agreement that aims to shore up shaky savings banks by the end of next month. Banks in France and Germany, which are among Greece’s top creditors, pledged to support a Greek bailout by continuing to lend to the country. Investors, meanwhile, are pouring money into bonds of countries seen as less exposed to the crisis, from Russia to Egypt.

Anxiety over the euro-zone economies sent the euro down to about 1.29 to the dollar, its lowest level in more than a year. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell for the second straight day, losing 58.65 points, or 0.54%, to close at 10868.12.

Greece’s 24-hour nationwide general strike brought much of the country to a standstill, closing government offices and halting flights, trains and ferries.

At the same time, tens of thousands of protesters marched through Athens in the largest and most violent protests since the country’s budget crisis began last fall. Angry youths rampaged through the center of Athens, torching several businesses and vehicles and smashing shop windows. Protesters and police clashed in front of parliament and fought running street battles around the city.

Witnesses said hooded protesters smashed the front window of Marfin Bank in central Athens and hurled a Molotov cocktail inside. The three victims died from asphyxiation from smoke inhalation, the Athens coroner’s office said. Four others were seriously injured there, fire department officials said.
Europe’s Debt Crisis

A police spokesman said eight fires in Athens office buildings and bank buildings had been brought under control.

Later Wednesday, black smoke billowed from fires on one of Athens’s main shopping streets. Glass shards and smoldering garbage littered the sidewalks.

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou condemned the violence. “Everyone has the right to protest,” he said in a statement to parliament. “But no one has the right to violence and especially violence that leads to the death of our compatriots.”

Wednesday’s protests were sparked by Greece’s weekend agreement to adopt austerity measures in exchange for a €110 billion ($143 billion) bailout loan from the European Union and the IMF. Unions challenged Greece’s parliament, which could consider the measures as soon as Thursday, to vote them down.

The general strike marks the broadest challenge to date to the government of Mr. Papandreou, which is pressed to pass the austerity legislation to unlock bailout funds to meet a debt payment later this month that it otherwise couldn’t meet.

The protests also brought out many Greeks who were resigned to belt-tightening. Their unhappiness at the cuts was matched with rancor toward a generation of politicians who they say spurred the crisis with decades of corruption, kickbacks and accounting legerdemain aimed at obscuring to the EU the true level of Greece’s annual deficits.

“For 30 years the Greek people have been held hostage,” said Periandros Athanassakis, 48, a garbage collector in Piraeus, the port near Athens. “Those who stole the money should pay.”

Some officials saw in Wednesday’s protests the seeds of broader discontent. “We may have an uprising in the making,” one senior Greek official said.

Greeks generally don’t blame Mr. Papandreou for the country’s problems, however, saying he inherited them from predecessors. It was his administration, elected in October, that announced the government’s budget deficit for 2009 would be equivalent around 13% of gross domestic product, compared with the 6% claimed by the previous administration.

Mr. Papandreou’s approval ratings are higher than those of the leader of the main opposition party.

Analysts also said the shock of Wednesday’s deaths could nudge Greece’s fractious political parties toward closer cooperation in dealing with the crisis and making it easier to pass reforms.

“This changes the political scene,” said George Sefertzis, an independent political commentator with the Athens consultancy Evresis. “There is no doubt that the deaths ease some of the political pressure.”

Under terms of the bailout deal, Greece’s government has announced a €30 billion package that will slash public-sector wages, cut pensions, freeze public- and private-sector pay, liberalize Greece’s labor laws and raise some taxes.

In Berlin on Wednesday, Chancellor Angela Merkel called on parliament to approve Germany’s contribution of €22.4 billion in loans to Greece. German public opinion opposes a Greek bailout but Ms. Merkel said it was essential. “Europe stands at a crossroad,” she said. “With us, with Germany, there can and will be a decision which lives up to the political, historical situation.”

In Greece’s northern city of Thessaloniki, there were reports of violence as police clashed with demonstrators who were attacking shop fronts amid a rally that drew at least 20,000 protesters to the streets.

Police officials estimated there were 20,000 protesters in Athens. Union officials said union-affiliated protesters alone totaled more than 60,000. Others put the number higher still. “This rally was double the size of the largest rally that has ever been held in Greece,” said Spyros Papaspyros, president of Adedy, a civil-service umbrella union. “If the government doesn’t listen, there will be more strike action next week.”

The day’s general strike, the year’s third, shut ministries and public offices. State hospitals and public utilities operated with skeleton staff. Shopkeepers joined the strike at midday, while journalists, bank workers, teachers, court workers, lawyers and doctors also walked off the job.

Many Greeks taking part in the demonstration saw little alternative than to accept the government measures and brace for a long, deep recession.

“I don’t expect the measures to be withdrawn,” said Pericles Papapetrou, 61, an architect and engineer who used to be mayor of the town of Elefsina. But, he said, the measures “could lead to extreme situations, such as an increase in crime, and also to an explosion of young people with no future.”

Artemis Batzak Panayou, a cleaning lady working for a local government, saw her €1,200 monthly salary, on which she supports three children, cut by €250 at the beginning of the year. She believes it will fall further. “There is no way to survive on the daily wages in the public sector,” she said, adding: “Greece won’t be fixed until all the crooks are removed from government.”
—Costas Paris and Nick Skrekas contributed to this article.

Right now, as we speak, we’ve got union firefighters are quite likely burning down a rash of buildings to “protest” that they aren’t getting more benefits than the outrageous benefits they’re already getting.

We’ve certainly already seen outright violence erupting at anti-Arizona law protest events.  And the Arizona law isn’t even in effect yet.

You watch.  The actual violence has nearly always come from the left in this country.  And it will surely be the case again.

The other thing that was interesting today is that the primary reason for our massive stock slide (and the double-digit slide on six of the last seven trading days) is Greece.  And Greece is crashing because it is a liberal socialist economy that imploded due to the same policies Obama is trying to bring to our shores now.

Which is to say that what will happen soon in America is that America will fail due to liberalism, and then liberals will violently riot in the streets.

Even Liberals Beginning To Warn Of Obama ‘Debt Tsunami’

We are heading for a cliff, and Barack Obama keeps pushing the accelerator to the floorboard.

It is bad.  It is so bad even the liberals on the editorial board of the Washington Post are aware of it.

The Debt Tsunami: The CBO’s latest warning on the long-term deficit is scarier than ever

Sunday, June 28, 2009

THE CONGRESSIONAL Budget Office has a tough job: to provide America’s lawmakers with a reality check on their tax and spending plans. Not surprisingly, the CBO’s projections are not always received cheerfully. Both President Obama and leading congressional Democrats were less than thrilled when the CBO estimated that the costs of universal health coverage would be much higher than advertised. To be sure, projecting the cost of legislation involves making assumptions and constructing models that may or may not prove accurate 10 years down the road. Nonetheless, the CBO, with its tradition of scholarly independence, is the best available arbiter, and Congress must heed its numbers — like them or not.

Now comes the CBO with yet more news of the sort that neither Capitol Hill nor the White House is likely to welcome: its freshly released report on the federal government’s long-term financial situation. To put it bluntly, the fiscal policy of the United States is unsustainable. Debt is growing faster than gross domestic product. Under the CBO’s most realistic scenario, the publicly held debt of the U.S. government will reach 82 percent of GDP by 2019 — roughly double what it was in 2008. By 2026, spiraling interest payments would push the debt above its all-time peak (set just after World War II) of 113 percent of GDP. It would reach 200 percent of GDP in 2038.

This huge mass of debt, which would stifle economic growth and reduce the American standard of living, can be avoided only through spending cuts, tax increases or some combination of the two. And the longer government waits to get its financial house in order, the more it will cost to do so, the CBO says.

It’s actually worse than the Washington Post editorial board states.  The 113% debt-to-GDP ratio cited by the Post used a different measuring standard than what the Congressional Budget Office uses today.  When the debt-to-GDP raises to 82% in 2019, it will be the equivalent of 144% when converted to the same standard that was used to calculate the WWII figure.

Let me illustrate: in 1945 the debt-to-GDP was 115% as found at scribd.com (it actually went to 121% in 1946); the same chart – which runs to 2007 – shows the debt-to-GDP as 65% in 2007.  But the Congressional Budget Office figure for the year 2007 shows the debt-to-GDP as 36.9% in 2007 (and 40.8% in 2008).  Clearly very different numbers.

So we have to do some converting to make the numbers comparable.  And what we find when we take that into account is that our debt-to-GDP ratio in 2019 will be 144.4% rather than 82% [65/39.6 = 1.76;     82 X 1.76 = 144.44].

So, if the Washington Post is going to provide us with debt-to-GDP figures from 1945, they need to state the current and future debt-to-GDP figures in the same terms.

Not only will our debt-to-GDP be considerably higher than it was at the highest point in our nation’s history due to Barack Obama’s frankly insane spending, but other factors need to be considered which reveal the real truth to be even worse yet.

Namely, during the WWII and post-WWII era, American productivity was at its height.  U.S. industrial capacity literally stunned the world.  We could built more tanks than the Germans believed possible; we could build so many aircraft that by wars’ end the U.S. were able to fly more planes on one single mission than Japanese intelligence said existed in the entire world.  And as the war ended, and as American factories geared toward peacetime production to provide a world whose industry had been devastated by war, we were able to produce as had never been seen before.

This is clearly not true anymore.  Today, we are watching our industrial capacity go bankrupt, in a trend that started years ago and has accelerated dramatically in recent times.

You cannot spend your way out of debt; you can only produce your way out of debt.  When American productivity was at its apex, we could recover from a high debt-to-GDP ratio.  But what can we do now and in the future, when we have lost that productive capacity?  Exactly how will we produce our way out of anything?

As another problem that is about as serious, during the WWII era America rationed and saved.  Even as Americans were rationing every commodity for the war effort, they were also investing in war bonds and Treasury bills.  So when the United States government went into high debt in the 1940s, who did they owe that debt to?  American citizens.  And as the U.S. government repaid that debt, it was being fed right back in to the U.S. economy.

Is that true anymore?  Not even close.  The U.S. population no longer rations, and it certainly doesn’t save.  And thus today, our debt is largely owned by foreign countries (particularly China).  So as our debt goes up and ever upward, the U.S. government is most certainly NOT feeding the American economy when it makes its interest payments; it is feeding China’s economy.

So, in real terms, our debt-to-GDP will be higher than it’s ever been (144.4% in 2019, soaring way past the 200s in 2038), and at the same time our means to accommodate that debt will be at an all-time low.  Thus, while our debt went down steadily after 1946, it will be going up dramatically as we enter our very bleak future.

In other words, we’re screwed.  We are really, truly screwed.

And as shocking as these numbers already are, they do not take into account the trillions of dollars that will be racked up as the Democrats advance their government health care agenda and their cap-and-trade fiasco.  The former will add trillions of dollars in costs even as the latter muzzles our economic output to the tune of trillions of dollars.

As the government tries to calculate the cost of health care “reforms,” realize something: in 1965, nobody (but conservatives) ever even began to dream that the Medicare program would soar to an unfunded obligation that is now over Thirty-six TRILLION dollars.  The next time someone tells you that the government will be able to create “savings,” remind him of the $36 trillion black hole known as Medicare.  And then laugh hysterically in his face.

It won’t get better.  Rather, it’s going to get so much worse that it would frankly be less frightening to be having Jason Voorhees chasing you around in a horror movie.  The baby boomer generation began qualifying for Social Security in 2008.  In two years, they will begin to qualify for Medicare.  From that point on, wave after wave of 77 million retiring baby boomers will begin to swamp the system for the next 20 years.  Talk about a “tsunami.”

To make matters even worse, our population is aging, and health care costs are going to “necessarily skyrocket” (to borrow a phrase Obama used to describe the costs that would result from his energy plan) no matter what we do.  In 1945, we had a worker-to-retiree ratio of 42 workers paying into the system for every retiree consuming benefits.  Now we have a 3-1 ratio.  And by 2030 it will be only 2-1.  It kind of makes me miss those 50 million potential workers that we murdered in the abortion mills.

There is no possible way out system can escape disaster.  And on top of that, we have a president and a Congress that is compiling more debt faster than any president and Congress in history, bar none.  President Obama racked up more debt in his few months in office – $1.8 trillion – than President Bush did in seven years (dealing with 9/11, two wars, and Hurricane Katrina to boot).

A New York Post article points out:

And these deficits aren’t merely a temporary result of the recession; the president’s budget would run deficits averaging nearly $1 trillion a year for the next decade.

The national debt would double. In other words, Obama would run up as much government debt as every president in US history from George Washington to George W. Bush — combined. Put simply, he’d dump $84,352 per household of new debt into the laps of our children and grandchildren over the next decade.

Given what we face, does more spending and more debt at a faster rate than has ever been compiled in human history seem sane to you?

One day, not very far off now, Americans will realize that they voted for their nation’s national suicide in voting for Barack Obama and a Democrat-controlled Congress.  They will realize that they voted for their children or grandchildren to struggle, and quite possibly starve to death as their country collapses under the weight of its own massive debt.

But until that time, we will continue merrily along as we hurtle faster and faster toward food riots and a total societal collapse.

The beast is coming.  I pray you will be ready.

Some Points On McCain vs. Obama Debate 3

On taxes and the economy:

The Joe the Plumber issue began with Barack Obama having a conversation with a plumber who planned to buy his employers’ business, but realized with concern that he would be paying much higher taxes under Obama’s plan.  Obama responded:

“It’s not that I want to punish your success. I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they’ve got a chance for success too,” Obama responded. “My attitude is that if the economy’s good for folks from the bottom up, it’s gonna be good for everybody … I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.”

Please realize: we’re talking about a PLUMBER and a SMALL BUSINESS – not a Wall Street tycoon or a big corproation.  He would pay more in taxes under Obama’s plan.  It turns out that half of the over 8 million taxpayers in the top 5% of income earners are small business owners.  And it is small business owners who are and have been the engine of the economy and who are hiring the most workers.  All the small businesses that are driving that engine – the businesses that employ at least 20 workers – would pay more taxes under Obama’s plan.

Obama keeps claiming that he’ll cut taxes for 95% of Americans.  but about 40% of Americans don’t pay federal taxes.  Obama will give these free riders an IRS welfare check paid for by taxpayers, amounting to nearly $400 billion dollars a year.  Obama’s tax credit goodies will be “fully refundable,” which is taxspeak for government payments that do not require a tax liability on the part of recipients in order to be paid out.  This is a transfer payment, a transfer of wealth, and socialism.

Corporations don’t pay taxes; they pass them on to you through higher prices.  Obama’s tax increase on corporations will amount to a de facto higher cost of living for you.  To the extent that it cuts into their profits, corproations will increasingly outsource jobs to save on labor costs, or they will simply relocate their operations to countries with lower corporate tax structures (that currently means anywhere on the planet except Japan unless taxes are lowered here).

If you want corporations and businesses to hire more workers and provide goods and services at low prices, you have to lower their tax burdens.  You don’t create an incentive to hire more workers when you increase their costs of doing business.

“Spread the wealth around,” Obama says.  From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.  Bottom line, if you design a system which does not sufficiently reward people based on allowing them to enjoy the fruits of their hard work, than no one will have incentive to work hard.  The hard worker will eventually get tired of working for the lazy person unless he can keep what he produces for the benefit of himself and his family.

In Europe, the steep rates create a disincentive to continue working.  If you have to pay skyhigh taxes after $200,000 (as a single filer in Obama’s plan), why keep working hard after you’ve made your $200,000?  Obama will confiscate most of your profits (for New Yorkers, as an example, it would be 65 cents of every dollar!).  If you’re a small business owner, you have good reason to simply shut down and take a long vacation until next April.  We don’t want that here.

Investors’ Business Daily describes Obama as “the most anti-capitalist politician ever nominated by a major party.”  And for good reason.  Sadly, the media has largely given inspection of Obama’s economic and tax plans a pass.  The specifics are largely unknown to the American people.  Barack Obama will regard the recent socializing of much of our financial system as a leaping-off point.

On health care:

One thing is extremely important to understand: Obama’s health care plan is modeled on the Massachusetts plan.  How are things going there?  Well, in couple of years of the program’s existence, the tiny state is now already facing cost overruns of over $400 million.  Does that sound like a rousing success?  Massachusetts is facing a projected 85% increase in its costs by 2009 – which should set up a serious red flag that such programs are MASSIVELY underfunded.

Obama is claiming that his plan will save money.  It won’t.  It has been tried, and it has failed.  He is overestimating the “savings” of his plan, and massively underestimating the costs.

Barack Obama’s health care plan is estimated to cost $1.6 trillion in 10 years.  And that’s if everything goes wll.  But it won’t go well.  The numbers don’t take into account the very sort of cost overruns and cost increases that are even now plaguing the very state that Obama is basing his own plan upon.  What is going to happen to our economy given the extremely real likelihood that Obama’s massive national plan runs into similar issues?  Do you believe our economy is strong enough to bear the brunt of these massive cost increases?

You need to understand something else that emerged from the second debate: is health care a privilege, a right, or a responsibility?  Obama answered “It should be a right.” What does that mean?  It means that a government has a fundamental duty to guarantee me my health care the same way it has a duty to guarantee me right to free speech or my right to assembly.  You have a constitutional, government-imposed duty to give me health care – no matter what – regardless of how much it costs you and your family to do so.  Am I an alcoholic who needs a liver transplant?  You owe me a new liver.  As an American citizen (or an illegal immigrant, under Obama’s plan) I have a right to that liver.   Did I sustain a brain injury riding my motorcycle without a helmet because I like to feel the wind in my hair?  Doesn’t matter.  Do I want a sex change?  Give it to me!  I have a fundamental constitutional right to that liver, or to that brain surgery and all the long months of incredibly expensive therapy, or to my sex change operation.  I also have a right to years of incredibly expensive psychological counseling with highly paid professionals.  And if I have any pre-existing conditions, you still have to cover me (and illegal immigrants because we don’t deny fundamental rights to anyone in the United States, even if they are here illegally), no matter what.

Do you understand how expensive this can all get?

Do you understand that Barack Obama is essentially talking about socializing a quarter of our economy?  Do you trust your government’s track record to do that?

On the mortgage industry collapse:

Neither candidate brought up the fact that there was a gigantic elephant in the room.  And it was ridiculous.  A lot of people are livid over this collapse and the subsequent $850 billion bailout package Congress approved.  But Democrats are all over this.  From their passage of the Community Reinvestment Act, to Bill Clinton’s radical expansion of the program (particularly in the last two years of his 2nd administration); to the almost exclusively Democratic leadership of Government Supported Enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (e.g. Jim Johnson, Franklin Raines, and Jamie Gorelick who collectively took over $300 million from the GSEs even as they played around with the books); to the repreated stubborn refusal of congressional Democrats to regulate Fannie and Freddie during the first six years of President Bush’s presidency.

Barney Frank repeatedly said that Fannie and Freddie were fine, and that regulation was unnecessary.  The last time was on July 14, 2008 – only a couple months before they went belly up.  He assured the American people – and American investors – that Fannie and Freddie stock were strong going forward.  The stock of Fannie and Freddie and declined 90% during the Democrats’ watch.  And oversight of Fannie and Freddie was Congress’ job, NOT President Bush’s.

This was a Democrat-created disaster.

And the level of propagandizing and demagoguery blaming Republicans for “the failed policies of the last 8 years” has reached a level of deceit not seen since Hitler blamed the Jews for all of Germany’s problems.

On abortion:

Abortion is an issue that not only displays how radical Barack Obama is, but how deceptive and disingenuous he is.  Factcheck.org has a thoroughly researched article titled, “Obama and ‘Infanticide’: The facts about Obama’s votes against ‘Born Alive’ bills in Illinois” which will shock you.  Obama DOES support infanticide in the name of abortion rights.

Barack Obama is deliberately misrepresenting his position on the Born Alive Infant Protection Act.  He has given fallacious reason after reason for wanting babies who have been born and are surviving outside of their mothers’ bodies to be killed.  Obama supports late term and partial birth abortion, too; but this evil transcends even that abomination against the sanctity of human life.

It is for this reason that I will refuse to support a President Obama or any country that elects him to lead it.  If the American people vote for Barack Obama, I will agree with Jeremiah Wright to this extent: “No, no, no.  Not God bless America.  God damn America!”  God damn an America that would vote for a certified baby killer.

Conclusion:

Our already-most-expensive education system in the world (around $65 billion a year) that isn’t producing education for our kids is going to get another nearly $20 billion a year from Barack Obama.  But the government throwing money at schools is clearly not the answer: Washington D.C. spends more money per student than any public school system in the world, but provides the worst education in the country.  As John McCain pointed out several times last night, again and again, Barack Obama sees big government spending other peoples’ money as the solution to every problem.

The obvious question to ask should be, where’s all this money going to come from?  From “the rich”?  Fat chance.  Half of the rich are no longer “rich” after all their investments went south; they invested themselves out of Obama’s 5% group.  The other half are going to shelter their money from Obama so they won’t have to pay Obama’s new taxes.  Where’s Obama going to get his money?  He’s going to come after you, and – given the polling figures – chances are you are too damn stupid to know it.

Economists by the truckload have come out against Obama’s plan, because when it fails – and it will fail – the costs will be catastrophic.

I liken this society to a culture that has been transformed into a lemming colony by a biased liberal media voting to jump off a cliff.

Obama’s Tax and Health Plans WILL Hurt Businesses – And Ultimately American Workers

There’s quite a bit of confusion about Obama’s tax plan and its effect on small business and American workers.

John McCain stated during Tuesday night’s debate that most small businesses would see their taxes increase due to Barack Obama’s tax plan.  Barack Obama corrected him and said that only a small percentage of small businesses would see their taxes go up.  Both men are wrong.  And both are right.

Obama may or may not be right when he says that only a small percentage of small business would see their taxes go up under his economic plan – as it is written now (in at least its fourth version).  He hasn’t specified whether he will tax on the basis of net or gross, whether inventory counts as total part of total income, and so on (because the media will NOT do its job and press a liberal on economic details).  But regardless of how the specifics pan out, don’t forget that Bill Clinton similarly campaigned on a tax relief for the middle class economic plan – and he immediately taxes on the middle class early in his first term.  Given the high likelihood of a Democrat-controlled Congress that is eager to have massive government social projects, another such “undeclared” tax hike on the middle class is actually quite likely.

John McCain may have been incorrect in how he phrased his objection during the debate, but he is still right enough to win the argument if the facts actually come out.  He was probably wrong in saying that most small businesses would see their taxes increase in terms of the total number of businesses.  If you earn a living mowing lawns, and have no employees, or you have a business out of your home, you probably won’t be paying any higher taxes.  But keep in mind that a small business can have as many as 500 employees (up to a 1,000 in some industries) and be classified as “small.”  And such businesses are the real engine of our economy.  If a small business even employs a handful of employees, it is likely its revenues easily exceed Obama’s $250,000 figure.  It is these businesses which hire the most workers, and it is these businesses that Obama will start taxing.  It is also these businesses which will suffer the most even from a modest increase in their operating costs.  Many are skating on pretty thin ice as it is.  They can’t just sell more stock.

If Barack Obama raises the taxes for these small business owners, there will be layoffs.  And as his plan is right now, he is promising to raise their taxes.  Realize that we are in a tough economy.  It is harder to obtain loans.  Fewer people will be buying.  Small businesses will be struggling to survive, and if Obama does what he promises to do – particularly when he is going to force businesses to start paying health care as well – you WILL see layoffs.

Meanwhile, Obama is decrying John McCain for wanting to give tax breaks to big oil.  John McCain does NOT want just to give tax breaks to big oil (actually it was OBAMA who voted with Bush for the last big energy bill giveaway to big oil); he wants to lower taxes for ALL corporations.  Most nations realize that lowering taxes for corporations has resulted in corporations creating more jobs and more tax revenues, and that more corporations will be attracted to their country.  But not the United States: we have the second highest corporate tax rate as it is.  Obama wants to be “#1.”

Is that good for our struggling economy?  Your vote on November 4 will be your answer that question.

Another thing Obama wants to do is impose requirements for businesses to provide comprehensive health care for their employees or pay into a government fund.  Small businesses would be ostensibly exempted from the requirement, and would get a 50 percent health-care tax credit to help ease their cost of employee coverage.  People with pre-existing conditions – which often impose the largest cost on the health care system – cannot be denied coverage.  Businesses who hire such people will be forced to grin and bare it.

I wonder how many older workers will be fired in order to hire new – and less expensive – younger workers?  Under Obama’s plan, I’d sure be looking at my older employees as “potential health care time bombs” just waiting to explode.

Do you think that businesses and corporations will begin to pay very close attention to the health of the employees they hire, or do you think they won’t care about how much a new workers’ mandatory health care will cost?

Between raising taxes, and mandating expensive new requirements, many businesses and corporations will experience a genuine double whammy.  Do you think American businesses are made of money, or do you think they are vulnerable?  You will be answering that question in your vote on November 4.

One thing is extremely important to understand: Obama’s health care plan is modeled on the Massachusetts plan.  How are things going there?  Well, in the three years of the program’s existence, the tiny state is now already facing cost overruns of over $400 million.  Does that sound like a rousing success?  Massachusetts is facing a projected 85% increase in its costs by 2009 – which should set up a serious red flag that such programs are MASSIVELY underfunded.

You need to understand something else that emerged from Tuesday night’s debate: is health care a basic right?  Obama answered “yes.”  What does that mean?  It means that you have a duty to provide me with health care.  You have a constitutional, government-imposed duty to give me health care – no matter what – even if it costs you and your family to do so.  Am I an alcoholic who needs a liver transplant?  You owe me a new liver.   Did I sustain a brain injury riding my motorcycle without a helmet because I like to feel the wind in my hair?  Doesn’t matter.  I have a fundamental constitutional right to that liver, or to that brain surgery and all the long months of incredibly expensive therapy.  If I have a right to health care in the sense that Barack Obama believes, nothing else matters.

Do you understand how expensive this can all get?

Do you understand that Barack Obama is essentially talking about socializing a quarter of our economy?  Do you trust your government’s track record?

Your vote will be your answer to that question.

Barack Obama’s health care plan is estimated to cost $1.6 trillion in 10 years.  But that doesn’t take into account the very sort of cost overruns and cost increases that are even now plaguing the very state that Obama is basing his own plan upon.  What is going to happen to our economy given the extremely real likelihood that Obama’s massive national plan runs into similar issues?  Do you believe our economy is strong enough to bear the brunt of these massive cost increases?

Your vote will be your answer to that question.

Let me also point out something else: if businesses and corporations are forced to absorb shocking new costs, do you believe they will just swallow their profitability, or do you think they will pass their new costs onto you through higher prices?  Barack Obama keeps talking about his “95% of Americans will get a tax break” (which means that 30-40% of Americans who don’t actually pay income taxes will get an IRS-subsidized welfare check).  Will that check compensate for the higher prices you are likely to pay across the board for virtually everything you buy?

Again, your vote on November 4 will answer that question.

Don’t be too suprised if you vote yourself right out of a job.