econarchy

I keep reading story after story in the Mainstream media that is critical of Obama. I am not referring to right-wing web sites, or even FoxNews, but left-leaning Liberal news outlets like the Washington Post and Newsweek. Salon.com, a very liberal website, has an article criticizing Obama’s “clumsy” and “smirky” staff for “sinking him.” No arguments there. Here is an excerpt:

Yes, free the president from his flacks, fixers and goons — his posse of smirky smart alecks and provincial rubes, who were shrewd enough to beat the slow, pompous Clintons in the mano-a-mano primaries but who seem like dazed lost lambs in the brave new world of federal legislation and global statesmanship.

Heads should be rolling at the White House for the embarrassing series of flubs that have overshadowed President Obama’s first seven weeks in office and given the scattered, demoralized Republicans a huge boost toward regrouping and resurrection. (Michelle, please use those fabulous toned arms to butt some heads!)

First it was that chaotic pig rut of a stimulus package, which let House Democrats throw a thousand crazy kitchen sinks into what should have been a focused blueprint for economic recovery. Then it was the stunt of unnerving Wall Street by sending out a shrill duo of slick geeks (Timothy Geithner and Peter Orszag) as the administration’s weirdly adolescent spokesmen on economics. Who could ever have confidence in that sorry pair?

Read more from Salon

Newsweek is also especially critical. The headline of the article is very telling:

Obama still has the approval of the people, but the establishment is beginning to mumble that the president may not have what it takes.

I don’t think there is any doubt that wise Democrats are starting to question their Manchurian Candidate. Obama’s long series of mistakes, blunders, and outright lies and hypocrisy have cast a shadow on who was built up to be the New Messiah. Rather than save the world, he has cost us countless trillions in the stock market and trillions more in wasteful, pork-laden government spending under the guise of “stimulus.” When Newsweek criticizes Obama, something has changed. Here is an excerpt:

Luckily for Obama, the public still likes and trusts him, at least judging by the latest polls, including NEWSWEEK’s. But, in ways both large and small, what’s left of the American establishment is taking his measure and, with surprising swiftness, they are finding him lacking.

They have some reasons to be concerned. I trace them to a central trait of the president’s character: he’s not really an in-your-face guy. By recent standards—and that includes Bill Clinton as well as George Bush—Obama for the most part is seeking to govern from the left, looking to solidify and rely on his own party more than woo Republicans. And yet he is by temperament judicious, even judicial. He’d have made a fine judge. But we don’t need a judge. We need a blunt-spoken coach.

Perhaps electing an unproven, inexperienced Socialist during the biggest economic crisis in 8 decades was not a wise decision.

Read More from Newsweek

Wow. Kevin Hassett writes an article for Bloomberg that really hits the nail on the head. Want to know why the markets are imploding? It is because we have a President who has declared a War on Business.

March 9 (Bloomberg) — Back in the 1960s, Lyndon Johnson gave us the War on Poverty. In the 1970s, Richard Nixon launched the War on Drugs. Now that we have seen President Barack Obama’s first-year legislative agenda, we know what kind of a war he intends to wage.

It is no wonder that markets are imploding around us. Obama is giving us the War on Business.

Imagine that some hypothetical enemy state spent years preparing a “Manchurian Candidate” to destroy the U.S. economy once elected. What policies might that leader pursue?

He might discourage private capital from entering the financial sector by instructing his Treasury secretary to repeatedly promise a brilliant rescue plan, but never actually have one. Private firms, spooked by the thought of what government might do, would shy away from transactions altogether. If the secretary were smooth and played rope-a-dope long enough, the whole financial sector would be gone before voters could demand action.

Another diabolical idea would be to significantly increase taxes on whatever firms are still standing. That would require subterfuge, since increasing tax rates would be too obvious. Our Manchurian Candidate would have plenty of sophisticated ideas on changing the rules to get more revenue without increasing rates, such as auctioning off “permits.”

These steps would create near-term distress. If our Manchurian Candidate leader really wanted to knock the country down for good, he would have to provide insurance against any long-run recovery.

There are two steps to accomplish that.

Discourage Innovation

First, one way the economy might finally take off is for some entrepreneur to invent an amazing new product that launches something on the scale of the dot-com boom. If you want to destroy an economy, you have to persuade those innovators not even to try.

Second, you need to initiate entitlement programs that are difficult to change once enacted. These programs should transfer assets away from productive areas of the economy as efficiently as possible. Ideally, the government will have no choice but to increase taxes sharply in the future to pay for new entitlements.

A leader who pulled off all that might be able to finish off the country.

Let’s see how Obama’s plan compares with our nightmare scenario.

Read more to see how Obama really is trying to finish off the country, or so it seems.