Freedom Line Blog

Barack Obama has done little, if anything, right during his year in office, but he’s obviously perfecting the art of shameless hypocrisy.

Appearing on CBS’s 60 Minutes yesterday, Barack Obama said with a straight face that “the people on Wall Street still don’t get it.  They don’t get it.” For good measure, he also broadly labeled bankers “fat cats” who have behaved in an “irresponsible” manner and not shown “a lot of shame.”

Let’s see.  This is the same Barack Obama who promised to address the $0.4 trillion deficit, only to add a trillion to make it $1.4 trillion in just his first year.  In other words, he is addressing the deficit by…  tripling it.  Lest one reflexively attribute that to his inheritance, this year’s deficit is on an even worse trajectory.  He is also the man who proposes adding an endless array of new entitlements and highly-paid new federal employees to an already-unsustainable budget trajectory.  He is also the man who seeks to reward the same federal bureaucracies that failed to recognize the financial bubble, and even abetted it, by granting them nearly plenary powers over the entire struggling economy.  He is also the man who aims to compound the nation’s economic woes by imposing catastrophic healthcare costs and carbon taxes upon it.  He is also the man who seeks to increase taxes on broad swaths of struggling individuals and small businesses by allowing rates to increase next year. He is also the man who promised to usher in a new era of international diplomacy and peace, only to see rogue regimes such as Iran increase their menace since his inauguration.

Yet he says that others “don’t get it?”

Laughably, he mocked bankers for being “puzzled” why the public is “mad” at them.  Perhaps he was merely projecting his own puzzlement at his record-low poll numbers, which similarly reveal a public “mad” at him?

The nation’s unemployment rate dipped slightly last month, and Barack Obama predictably trumpeted this seemingly-postitive “trend.”

Unfortunately, we can’t pop the champagne corks just yet.

A one-month decline isn’t a “trend” (the unemployment rate has dipped slightly in recent months only to resume its increase, and remains high), and the longer-term prospect of improvement under current leadership is troubling.  As noted by The Wall Street Journal’s Mark Gongloff, the nation still shed 125,000 jobs last month.  Additionally, the portion of unemployed Americans on permanent layoff reached an all-time high of 55.1%, a record 9.3 million remain underemployed, over one million have abandoned the workforce altogether and employers “show little inclination to rehire, even though the recession has supposedly been over for five months now.”

The bottom line is that unlike previous recessions, there is a much dimmer light at the end of the tunnel due to the ominous prospect of new healthcare burdens, skyrocketing deficits, a weakened dollar, draconian carbon cap-and-tax burdens, tax increases, more federal regulations and bald negation of common-law contract rights by the government.  Until Obama, Reid and Pelosi smell the coffee and recognize the gloom that they’re casting over the nation’s economy and employment picture, the prospect of dramatic rebound remains thin.

The Small Business & Entrepreneurship (SBE) Council this week released its annual ranking of individual states by business friendliness, and the results aren’t surprising to anyone who understands the importance of lower taxes, less regulation and fewer labor burdens.

After noting the inhospitable business environment cultivated by the Obama White House and the Pelosi-Reid Congress at the national level, SBE Council chief economist Raymond Keating highlights the critical role played by individual states in fostering small business growth.  As Mr. Keating notes, “small businesses, of course, drive innovation, economic growth and job creation.  If we want to get our economy back on a solid, robust growth track, then we need pro-entrepreneur policies at the federal, state and local levels.”

The study incorporates some 36 government-related factors, including tax rates, regulatory costs, state government spending, property rights and energy costs.  And the results are not shocking.  Pro-growth states like Texas, Florida and South Dakota lead, whereas notoriously basket-case states like California and New York sink toward the bottom.

It’s often said that the states serve as policy test laboratories in our federal system, so here’s hoping that someone directing our national levels of government learn the simple lessons offered by the SBE Council’s latest report.

In an uncharacteristically heated exchange last week at the House Joint Economic Committee, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner astonisingly denied any responsibility for financial decisions that helped trigger our current downturn.

Representative Kevin Brady (R – Texas) recited a litany of Geithner’s errors and concluded, “the public has lost all confidence in your ability to do the job.”  Peering from behind his oversized forehead and beady little eyes, Geithner replied, “what I can’t take responsibility for is the legacy of crises you’ve bequeathed this country.”

On what planet is Geithner living?

This is the man who, in addition to failing to pay federal income taxes, served as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.  Let’s see…  Chief of the Federal Reserve, driver of the loose money monetary bubble,  in the city that is the financial center of the world, whose speculation and ensuing meltdown sparked the economic downturn… Perhaps he was asleep at his desk throughout his tenure, thereby absolving him from responsibility?

Come to think of it, that might also explain his blatant failure to pay taxes.

As the worldwide economic downturn drags on, why are European regulators arbitrarily stifling Oracle’s acquisition of Sun Microsystems, causing harm to the latter’s business?  One would think we’d want to encourage beneficial mergers during these lean times. right?

Apparently not in the sclerotic European Commission (EC).  After notoriously blocking such other synergistic mergers as General Electric and Honeywell, EC bean-counters are formally objecting to the Oracle/Sun agreement.  Even the suddenly-activist Obama Justice Department had already approved the deal and said it wouldn’t harm competition, but it apparently troubles the European status quo too much for Euro tastes.  As a result, Sun’s sales have plummeted some 25%, and Oracle could ultimately be forced to abandon the deal and pay a $260 million breakup penalty. Oracle’s software focus doesn’t even compete with Sun in the consumer marketplace, and the agreement was reached back in April.

Meanwhile, EC bureaucrats navel-gaze, and consumers again pay the price.

During a week in which Nancy Pelosi force-fed her job-killing healthcare bill to America, it was timely that the Kauffman Foundation released a report on how jobs are created in this country.

According to their study released last week, two-thirds of jobs created as recently as 2007 came from enterprises less than five years old.  Indeed, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, almost all of America’s net job creation since 1980 came from new businesses.  This stands to reason in our dynamic economy, where giant firms tend to become complacent and wither, whereas new innovators with novel ideas rapidly expand and create new jobs.  Think of General Motors and Microsoft, for instance.   Before that, the horse-and-buggy industry lost employees to the auto makers.  This is the nature of our economic system.

With this in mind, what are Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid doing to create jobs?  We’re not referring to temporary work funded by dollars borrowed from future generations or wrenched from more productive uses via taxation – actual jobs?  Stated differently, what entrepreneur in his or her right mind would consider this a promising moment to take risks and hire new employees?  From healthcare “reform” to carbon cap-and-tax legislation to higher taxes to financial regulation, Obama, Pelosi and Reid see employers as mere scapegoats who should be saddled with even higher costs of employment.  They bail out dinosaurs like GM and Chrysler, but leave smaller entrepreneurs to suddenly subsidize ObamaCare and the ever-expanding federal government.

The unemployment rate just jumped to 10.2% despite Obama’s promise that it wouldn’t exceed 8% if we swallowed his “stimulus” medicine.  At what point does he wake up and smell the real-world coffee?  Will he ever?

Remember when the Obama Administration promised that, if we only passed his potent “stimulus” plan, unemployment would top out at 8%?  In contrast, according to Obama, if the American people foolishly refused his master plan, unemployment might rise as high as 10%?

Well, this morning, the U.S. Department of Labor provided yet another wakeup call and simple math lesson to Mr. Obama.  Unfortunately, the unemployment rate has now risen to 10.2%.  Worse, Obama’s ineffective “stimulus” has only exacerbated the problem by adding to our unsustainable federal debt and creating a forward-looking business climate that is inhospitable to creation of new employment and enterprises.  Something to keep in mind as Obama issues new promise after promise regarding his healthcare, carbon cap-and-tax and other agenda items.

How’s this for unadulterated, sanctimonious chutzpah:  “Top Obama Aides Upbraid Wall Street.”

So announces a Washington Post headline, discussing the harsh criticisms leveled by Obama Administration officials against Wall Street firms.  But consider this:  if Wall Street executives ran their firms and kept their books the same way that the federal government does, they would be in jail until their dying days.  Or consider how Obama and his apologists promised that if his “stimulus” plan was passed, unemployment would top out at 8%.  Well, it’s now at 9.8% and rising.  If a Wall Street CEO made similarly fatuous promises to unwary consumers, the resulting onslaught of class action lawsuits would descend faster than a Swiss avalanche.

Yet there was David Axelrod on ABC’s This Week, labeling Wall Street behavior “offensive” and admonishing them that “they ought to think through what they are doing.”  Perhaps, but nobody should take that advice more than officials of an administration that is taking an already-dangerous fiscal situation and making it positively deadly.  Too bad there are no righteous trial lawyers who can do anything about them.

The Dow Jones Industrial topped 10,000 during trading today.  This is the first time the Dow has hit 10,000 or above since October 7, 2008.

If the Waxman-Markey Cap-and-Trade bill (H.R. 2454) becomes law, U.S. economic growth could be slashed by 2.4 percent and the legislation would cost 2 million jobs by 2030.  This, according to a recent study conducted by the Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) and released today.

The study, which was commissioned by the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) and the American Council for Capital Formation (ACCF), assesses the impact of the Waxman-Markey bill on manufacturing, jobs, energy prices and the overall U.S. economy.  According to a summary of the study, “The NAM and ACCF released national data as well as the analysis for 15 industrial states that would be impacted greatly if this or similar legislation is signed into law.  The full report, including the data covering the remaining 35 states will be released in the coming weeks.”

The Senate is expected to take up its version of climate change legislation in September.  This latest study is yet another in a growing list of reasons why it shouldn’t.

Read the full national report here.

Access the analysis of each of the 15 states that have released so far here.

According to the Wall Street Journal, economists predict that our recent global economic meltdown has come to an end.   According to the survey, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is expected to increase 2.4% in the third quarter of this year.  However, since employment is a lagging indicator, it may take several more months to see a pronounced decline in the unemployment rate.