Dr. Robert Owens Chronicles the History of the Future

Macroeconomics Should Be a Required Course March 17, 2017

People avoid silence because they’re afraid of what they might hear.   Although we value our freedom of speech, polite conversation in America is subject to one crushing rule, “Don’t talk about religion or politics!”  Most of us were raised with this stifling warning in our ears.  The purpose was to avoid arguments at the dinner table but the result is a population unconcerned in the two subjects affecting life the most.  I can only talk about the weather for so long which displays the wisdom of memorizing sports stats and watching American Idol.  With the two biggest topics off the table we’re faced with either trivial pursuit or silence.  Bored with the weather and having neglected my memorization and viewing options I propose a topic to stimulate vigorous conversation without causing any bickering: economics.

Barry, Harry, and Nancy knew they had to take us through-the-looking-glass in four short years.  With no effective break on their power for the first two years, Congress moved so fast their yesterday became our tomorrow.  That tomorrow is now today.  The ruling party rammed their agenda through without one opposition vote.  Every revolution needs an emergency to justify radical surgery and the economy is the emergency available. Consequently, these descendants of FDR and LBJ shoved a raw deal down the throat of a great society.

We have now exited the fog of Progressive economic “thought” and the authoritarian central planning that it requires.  Hopefully we are now being led by someone who at least understands that you can’t spend more money that you make forever.  As Margaret Thatcher once said, “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.”

Almost everyone is in agreement that the BHO’s stimulus failed.  According to MSNBC, “In January, Obama’s economic team predicted unemployment would rise no higher than 8 percent with the help of $787 billion in new government spending.”  However, according to the LA Times the unemployment rate in May reached a 25-year high of 9.4 percent.  The President might have seen glimmers of hope.  The administration which ran on the slogan, “The worst economy since the Great Depression” misread how bad the economy was.  How bad was it?  What’s worse than the Great Depression?  What’s their answer to this baddest of bad economies?  What was their Plan B?  Try Plan A again, and again, and again?

Just look at the money wasted on BHO’s green energy boondoggles:

The complete list of faltering or bankrupt green-energy companies:

1. Evergreen Solar ($25 million)*
2. SpectraWatt ($500,000)*
3. Solyndra ($535 million)*
4. Beacon Power ($43 million)*
5. Nevada Geothermal ($98.5 million)
6. SunPower ($1.2 billion)
7. First Solar ($1.46 billion)
8. Babcock and Brown ($178 million)
9. EnerDel’s subsidiary Ener1 ($118.5 million)*
10. Amonix ($5.9 million)
11. Fisker Automotive ($529 million)
12. Abound Solar ($400 million)*
13. A123 Systems ($279 million)*
14. Willard and Kelsey Solar Group ($700,981)*
15. Johnson Controls ($299 million)
16. Brightsource ($1.6 billion)
17. ECOtality ($126.2 million)
18. Raser Technologies ($33 million)*
19. Energy Conversion Devices ($13.3 million)*
20. Mountain Plaza, Inc. ($2 million)*
21. Olsen’s Crop Service and Olsen’s Mills Acquisition Company ($10 million)*
22. Range Fuels ($80 million)*
23. Thompson River Power ($6.5 million)*
24. Stirling Energy Systems ($7 million)*
25. Azure Dynamics ($5.4 million)*
26. GreenVolts ($500,000)
27. Vestas ($50 million)
28. LG Chem’s subsidiary Compact Power ($151 million)
29. Nordic Windpower ($16 million)*
30. Navistar ($39 million)
31. Satcon ($3 million)*
32. Konarka Technologies Inc. ($20 million)*
33. Mascoma Corp. ($100 million)

*Denotes companies that have filed for bankruptcy.

I think what our leaders needed as they drove the largest economy the world has ever known over the cliff was Economics 102, Macroeconomics or how an economy works.

Most people, including the best-government-money-can-buy, look at the economy as if it were controlled by magic having no idea where the rabbit goes or where the doves come from, and since I doubt I’ll convince any of our all-knowing leaders to enroll in freshman macroeconomics I want to offer a crash course in Economic Reality.

1. Government regulations distort markets and inflate bubbles.
2. Every generation experiences at least one bubble and at least one bust.
3. Every bubble bursts.
4. Every burst bubble is followed by a panic.
5. Panics inspire economic regulations.
6. Economic regulations reflect political ideologies not economic realities.
7. Economic regulations always regulate the excesses of the last bubble.
8. Economic regulations are always blind to the excesses of the next bubble.
9. Since consumption is the purpose for production any economic regulation that ignores this fact always leads to the misapplication of resources and the misdirection of effort.
10. Depressions are recessions with government help.
11. It is impossible to spend yourself into prosperity.
12. It is impossible to tax yourself into prosperity.
13. Higher taxes lead to smaller revenue and black-markets.

The BHO’s New Economy was leading us straight to the Second World, from freedom to conformity from capitalism to the stagflation and malaise of Obamanomics.  Instead of a fair race with the rapidly transforming economies of Asia, America ran hobbled like a child in a three – legged race strapped to the stiff-legged ideas of collectivism.

Why did our leaders want us economically hobbled?  What would they gain if we fall into the swamp of poverty engulfing most of the world?  Wouldn’t they be right there with us?  Go to any Second or Third World country and you’ll see the rich and powerful behind walls in gated-communities where they live in the First World while everyone else sits in the dirt eating leaves.  Venezuela is a good current example.

In the old America, using capitalism to provide economic opportunity we avoided this fate with the growth of a massive middleclass.  Under BHO that middleclass was under assault from stagnant wages, rising prices, and disappearing jobs the middleclass was being outsourced.  How is this being accomplished?

Remember the mantra of the Clintons?  “It’s the economy stupid!” That’s still the Liberal’s strategy, riding like a flea on a rat cradle-to-grave with social engineering in the guise of economic policy.  The Progressives drive the economy into the ditch all the while saying it is someone else’s fault and shrieking that we need more of what is causing the problem: bloated government and runaway spending.  A lack of basic economic understanding was destroying the greatest economy ever forged.  A zero sum game causes divisions and arguments about who gets what when we used to all strive for the same thing: success.

Under the Trump Administration at least someone is making an effort to turn this around.  Look at the first budget proposal The Donald has put forth.  He is trying to return government to its essential purpose, defense and trade while leaving the social engineering of PBS and endowments for the arts to gain the private support which should be their bread and butter.

Look at his attempt to end the mass importation of possible terrorists whose presence provides the seedbed for a Trojan War.  How about the idea of eliminating two regulations to impose one?  How about cutting the US contributions to the UN?  Asking our allies to pay their fair share?  Standing up to the lying manipulative media?  These are all things We the People out here in fly-over country have been asking our government to enact for years.  This isn’t President Trump’s agenda.  This is ours.

Now the Progressives of both the supposed Left and the supposed Right are for once out in the open in their alliance to do nothing more than maintain their own power.  They seek to divide us.  Divide and conquer is their strategy.  We can’t let divisions divide us anymore.  We must unite and demand that the only sane policy for us is America First.

America is splintering as the melting pot becomes a smelting pot.  What is its cause?  The divisiveness of class-warfare encouraged by the only people who win through America’s split between red and blue, rich and poor, us and them.  Who are they?  If it isn’t us I guess it’s them.

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion.  He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2017 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens