How Obama's Recovery Helps the 1% Most

Subject: Re: Fwd: How Obama's Recovery Helps the 1% Most


What this inability to push forward real recovery and reform by President
Obama tells me is that we are facing far stronger and united opposition than
Roosevelt faced in the 1930's.
Roosevelt was much more of an elitist than is Obama, yet he put together far
reaching reforms, and pushed them through congress.
As much as Obama might want to see himself as the Great Compromiser, he is
not in the same league as Roosevelt. Not even LBJ.
This is not to question whether he really has the interest of the Working
Class or Middle Class at heart. It doesn't matter what his own beliefs are
if he can't push through anything better than that Obama, with it's lips
pursed to the HMO's backsides.
He can't even do like Bush JR. did, and start a war. He got saddled with
one, already so done you could stick a fork in it. He might have bailed the
American Home Owners out, but he believed he could gain support from the
Robber Barons, and he bailed them out instead. Now what can he do for those
American Former Home Owners? Their homes are swallowed up by the very folks
who are now out to slam Obama to the mat.
If anyone is still hitching their wagon to Obama, may I offer my deepest
condolences?

Carl Jarvis



----- Original Message -----
From: "Bob Hachey" <bhachey@verizon.net>
To: "'Blind Democracy Discussion List'" <blind-democracy@octothorp.org>
Sent: Wednesday, August 07, 2013 12:58 AM
Subject: RE: Fwd: How Obama's Recovery Helps the 1% Most


Hi ted,
I usually find something in these laisez Faire pieces with which to agree
but not this time. This just proves to me that Obama and the dems put
together a stimulus package that was way too small. If we wanted to decrease
savings among the very rich, why not increase taxes on all interest earned
that is greater than, let's say $100,000.00 while offering tax breaks for
increased investments in new business and jobs. For instance, if you spend
over $2 million on new offices or new stores or new plant and equipment, you
get some percentage decrease in income tax? OR, get rid of the upper income
limit on social security tax and invest the earnings on infrastructure
improvement.
No value in this article for me.
Bob Hachey

-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounces@octothorp.org
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounces@octothorp.org] On Behalf Of ted chittenden
Sent: Tuesday, August 06, 2013 8:40 PM
To: blind-democracy
Subject: Fwd: Fwd: How Obama's Recovery Helps the 1% Most

Hi to all.

Here is another very good commentary from Laisez Fair and Jeffrey Tucker.
Please take note of what happened to the savings rate among the wealthiest
1% over the last year according to CNBC. Unfortunately, it is the rich who
should be doing the spending and the poor who should be doing the saving,
but that same 1% are determined to keep it just the way it is.
--
Ted Chittenden

Every story has at least two sides if not more.

Subject: Fwd: How Obama's Recovery Helps the 1% Most
From: David Chittenden <dchittenden@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 7 Aug 2013 10:16:46 +1200
To: Ted Chittenden <tchittenden@cox.net>



David Chittenden, MSc, MRCAA
Email: dchittenden@gmail.com
Mobile: +64 21 2288 288
Sent from my iPhone

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Laissez Faire Today <lftoday@lfb.org>
> Date: 7 August 2013 5:10:47 NZST
> To: <dchittenden@gmail.com>
> Subject: How Obama's Recovery Helps the 1% Most
>
> Why the best laid government plans usually wind up benefiting the
politically connected most.
>
> If you are having trouble viewing this email please try our web version.
>
>
> LFB SITE BROWSE ARCHIVES WHITELIST UNSUBSCRIBE
> August 6, 2013
>
> The Triumph of Scrooge McDuck
>
> Dear Laissez Faire Today Reader,
>
> Baltimore, MD -- The government calls it the SAVE Award. Short for
Securing Americans Value and Efficiency, it's known mostly to federal
employees inside the D.C. beltway as a way to generate ideas on how to save
money within the government. On the surface, it sounds like a great idea.
But like most things that come out of the government, the end result is
anything but efficient.
>
> It's common knowledge that the best government plans often go awry.
Whether it's something as simple as coming up with ways to save money or as
complicated as jump-starting the U.S. economy, the original goals almost
never pan out. And just like the stimulus plan back in 2009 (or even the
Wall Street bailout of 2008), the SAVE Award fails every year.
>
> The suggestions generated by government employees range from the practical
to the outrageous. One of the most common suggestions is that the government
use both sides of a sheet of paper when they print documents. The fact that
the government prints so much that this is a popular idea among various
agency makes one wonder how many trees fall at the hands of these
bureaucrats. But that's beside the point.
>
> The best ideas come from the jaded employees who see and experience the
government waste firsthand. Currently, the most popular suggestion on the
SAVE Award suggestion site is the elimination of the wasteful spending that
occurs at the end of every year in government offices across the nation.
>
> You see, unlike companies that operate in the normally competitive
conditions of the free market, department budgets are set at the beginning
of the year. When the end of the year rolls around, any money that isn't
spent is deducted the next year. This has led to wasteful spending that only
trained government employees can master. New chairs, computers, and various
office equipment are ordered without considering whether they're actually
necessary.
>
> This idea gets proposed practically every year. And every year, the people
who decide the award ignore it. Instead, they award it to a silly proposal
that barely affects federal employees.
>
> Take last year's winner, for example. The SAVE Award went to a man who
proposed that all federal employees who receive public transit benefits
shift from regular transit fare to the reduced senior fare as soon as they
are eligible. On the surface, it's a sound idea. But compared with all the
wasteful spending that happens in government, it just shows how ridiculous
this government plan really is.
>
> But that's the norm in D.C. If you look back at the past few
administrations, the best laid government plans usually turn up unforeseen
unintended consequences. And the people who benefit from them are normally
the last people the government intended. Health insurance companies were
handed millions of new customers thanks to the Affordable Care Act. At the
same time, the people whom the law was supposed to help ended up paying
higher premiums.
>
> Nothing, however, is more of a failure than the various bailouts and
stimulus packages passed in the past five years. Meant to either save Wall
Street or jump-start the economy and preserve middle-class families, years
later, the landscape is very different. And as Laissez Faire's Jeffrey
Tucker uncovers in today's article, the only people positioning themselves
to recover from the Great Recession are the most financially well-off in
society.
>
> Read on to learn about another government failure that you won't read
about in your daily newspaper.
>
> Government trembles in fear over the "fourth revolution"
>
> Sure, the digital revolution seems like it was just yesterday... but
technology is moving at warp speed. And now a "fourth revolution" is at your
door. While the government is terrified of the technology behind it... we
believe it may foreshadow a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
>
> Discover how the real story behind an idealistic law student's battles
with the U.S. government over gun control could launch you to financial
liberty.
>
> Click here for the controversial video that proves it could happen.
>
>
> Introducing Jeffrey Tucker's... The Triumph of Scrooge McDuck
>
>
> Jeffrey Tucker
> Government can control many things, but it can't control our minds and,
therefore, our economic decisions. This has been a major source of
frustration for the last two presidents.
>
> In 2001, President Bush demanded that Americans immediately go out and
spend, racking up more debt in the hopes of inspiring economic recovery.
President Obama has done this too, and his central banking henchmen have
rigged the monetary system to punish anyone who saves.
>
> You might think it would work, and it has, among some classes. But the
wealthy are different. New surveys from people who make more than $750,000
per year show a new record level of savings among them.
>
> CNBC says, "According to research from American Express Publishing and
Harrison Group, the savings rate of the wealthiest 1% in the second quarter
rose to 37%. That's up from 34% in the second quarter of 2012 -- and more
than three times their savings rate in 2007."
>
> In other words, their saving is actually increasing, even given the
evidence that the everlasting recession has abated in some ways. The rich
continue to act as if it is 2009 -- which suggests that this class has
little confidence that the high stock market and seemingly good news that
trickles out are really sustainable. They are preparing for the next crisis
in ways they wish they had prepared for the last one.
>
> It's fascinating too to consider their investing and spending habits. CNBC
further notes that only 40% are looking to invest anything in new companies
over the next two years, and only 16% are considering doing that over the
coming months.
>
> This is a deep psychology of risk aversion. The Fed has driven interest
rates to zero and attempted to put the screws to anyone who undertakes this
Scrooge McDuck strategy of financial preservation. But it still doesn't
work. The rich won't let go. They will not be fooled again.
>
> Economists tend to forget the impact of past events on people's current
behavior. My mind often drifts back to the lady who lived in the house
behind mine for years. She grew up in the worst of the Great Depression and
recalled just how hard it was to get pans for the kitchen or basic materials
for making dresses. Everything was precious. Nothing could be taken for
granted. Therefore, she threw nothing away, no matter what. This habit
persisted to the end.
>
> After she died, her children went through the house and found hundreds and
hundreds of foil pie pans, stacked higher and higher. There was a room with
pillars of them. She loved pies and bought many at the store. But she could
never bring herself to throw away the foil pans. To her, this was an item of
high value. She couldn't shake the feeling that it would be gravely
irresponsible to toss away something that might have cost a week's wages in
1937.
>
> It's common to dismiss this sort of attitude as evidence of senility.
Surely, it is irrational! Her kids, of course, just rolled their eyes and
tossed it off as sheer nuttiness.
>
> I wouldn't say so. If you live through times of grave privation, you never
quite get over it. You come to understand a great truth that people who grew
up amid plenty do not understand. You see the physical prosperity around you
as a contingent condition that can be wiped out under the right
circumstance. You no longer trust those in authority to bail you out. You
come to understand the obligation to provide for yourself no matter what.
>
> In short, you come to realize that no economic value is permanent and all
is subject to change.
>
> The savings behavior of the rich today is evidence that they are much like
the old widow and her pie pans. They were burned very badly in the great
collapse of 2008. It affected mainly real estate, a sector every respectable
voice said would never fall. This was a safe haven, a permanent asset, and
the best investment you could ever make. In a few short months (and in some
cases even weeks), all those assumptions were blown away. Then the contagion
started: The banks, the stock market, commercial real estate, old-line
investment firms -- everyone suffered.
>
> That lesson tends to last, and it accounts for why it is so difficult for
the federal government to stop this tendency to hoard cash and prepare for
another rainy day.
>
> What's more, this approach is actually socially beneficial. You have to
ask the question: Where does investment come from? Of course, people like
Obama never ask this question. To him, the answer is obvious: The Fed can
just print money and people will invest it. Or the federal government can
just tax people and use the money to "invest" in his favorite sectors, like
electric cars and electricity-generating windmills.
>
> This is sheer fantasy. There is only one source of genuine investment.
That is savings. Savings comes about from forestalling consumption. You have
to give up things today so that you can have more tomorrow. There is no
other path. The attempt to skirt that savings obligation and replace it with
fiddling by the central bank and the government is pure folly. At best, it
creates another round of false booms that end in busts. At worst, it
destroys wealth and creates nothing at all.
>
> What's interesting is how individuals and institutions seem to understand
something here that government and its economists do not. Despite every
attempt to stop savings altogether -- under the misbegotten theory that
consumption causes growth -- savings in general actually soared after 2008.
Only recently has the rate dipped among most of the populace, even as it has
continued to increase among the smart set.
>
>
>
> You will note that the same thing happened at the attacks of Sept. 11,
2001. The president went on television to demand that everyone immediately
go out and buy something. But Americans were at the point of assuming that
whatever the president wants is probably not what is best for them and their
families. Savings went up. But this was nothing compared with what happened
after 2008. This was when people really started stuffing their mattresses.
>
> The beautiful thing about this example is that it shows that government
can't always get what it wants. In fact, it rarely gets what it wants. The
whole of its economic policy models are predicated on the idea that people
respond to economic signals like machines. Change the signal and people fall
in line. But that's not how it works in the real world. People have brains
and they have memories. The memory of 2008 is still with us, and it's a good
thing, too, for the prosperity of the future can come only from the savings
of the past.
>
> Let's hear it for the Scrooge McDucks of the world. They dare to disobey,
and, in so doing, they are building for the future, from which we will all
benefit. We might all consider emulating them. Saving money is the ultimate
revenge.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Jeffrey Tucker
>
> P.S. Just because the government is making it almost impossible for you to
save by forcing near zero interest rates on you doesn't mean you can't plan
for the future. In fact, a colleague of ours has made a living out of
finding ways around the best laid government plans.
>
> And while the president would rather you put your money toward green
companies owned by his campaign donors, this man has another idea in mind.
One that uses the government's own tax code to give you monthly income
checks. The IRS hates him, but he doesn't care. Because everything he does
is 100% legal.
>
> Check out the first two minutes of this presentation to see how he's
upsetting the government.
> At Last, GOOD News About Taxes...
>
> Nobody likes taxes. So what could be better than finding out that any
American could start collecting -- right now -- up to 36 fat income checks
per year, 100% tax free. Even the U.S. Supreme Court and the IRS says this
is perfectly legal. And you don't need to be rich to benefit. Click here for
full details...
>
>
> Club Chatter
>
> "Even at the chance to have this email intercepted and filed for
eternity," begins Club member Dieter R. regarding Edward Snowden's NSA
revelations, "from my perspective, the main error [he] did was that he did
not engineer his escape properly. Now he's tied down in an international
transfer compound, possibly being a burden to his host."
>
> "What you," admonishes Club member Marcus M., "your vaunted
editors/spokesmen, and others seem to neglect to consider is that the
individual in question apparently signed a document explaining that the
release of the information entrusted to him in the course of his employment
to others outside of his work purview was a serious violation of the law and
would be punishable accordingly. Consequently, he is a criminal and not a
'hero.'"
>
> LFT: Technically, that might be true. But did the whistle-blowers who
brought down Enron violate their confidentiality agreements when they
brought to light the shady backroom dealings in the company? The president
once promised to protect whistle-blowers. But you saw how that turned out.
What do you think? Does a contract require you to legally remain silent,
even when it's the Constitution that's at stake?
>
> "Having given quite a considerable amount of thought," comments Club
member Will S., who hails from the United Kingdom, "to the size of
government and the size of the private sector in general terms, I have
reached the conclusion that there is a threshold above which the size of
government becomes a problem. In many European states, the role of
government has risen largely because of the historical monarchical systems.
The relatively young republic [of America] meant people started pretty much
with a level playing field... and so capitalism served it well. The
threshold above which I feel it becomes a problem, though, is circa 35%. Two
persons in the private sector for every one in the public sector or retired
or in education seems a reasonable threshold."
>
> LFT: Leviathan is a fickle beast. And it's never capable of standing still
for too long. The question is whether the government is growing or shrinking
when it hits that 35% mark.
>
> Thank you for reading Laissez Faire Today. We greatly value your questions
and comments. Click here to send us feedback.
>
>
>
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