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Britt Combs: Change looks like more of the same, only more so

Obama turns out to be little more than a third term for Bush, or even a fifth term for Clinton

By Britt Combs | The McDowell News

Published: September 15, 2009

With the entire financial world crashing a year ago, and with the U.S. collapsing under a mountain of private, public and corporate debt, the timing of the failure of Lehman Brothers could not have been better for candidate Barack Obama, the Archangel of Change.

When megalomaniacal blow-hard John McCain announced that "the fundamentals of our economy are sound," he pretty well handed Obama the election in a gift wrapped box. McCain and his party suffered arguably the poorest party turn-out in decades, as legions of Republicans either abstained or crossed the lines to vote for the junior senator from Illinois.

Americans were as united as they have been in living memory in their outrage over the Bush-advocated TARP bailouts. Obama promised "an end to failed Bush policies" and a program of "Change we can believe in."

You couldn't be blamed for thinking that he meant by that a new era of balanced budgets, and end to foreign military adventures, a restoration of the rule of law, and an immediate halt to fascistic association between the banks, industry and the federal government.

But you'd be wrong; the Obama "Stimulus" was little more than TARP II, a massive give-away to the same fat cats and campaign contributors Bush used to bend over for. Lehman's sin was failure to give enough contributions, nothing more.

He could have done a lot. He could have implemented a host of reforms, prioritizing the Democrats' long-claimed dedication to the "social safety net" by championing, for example, health care reform that provided basic, life-saving care to the poor and indigent using inexpensive, proven and effective measures, and to manage or alleviate their pain at the end of life.

He chose instead to champion a government takeover of a vast segment of the economy. He chose loyalty to Washington power brokers and lobbyists over any loyalty he may have had to the people. Just like Bush's Medicaid Part D prescription drug plan, he shows no apparent reluctance to heaping massive new debt on his successors in exchange for a few votes. Some Change!

As far as military adventures are concerned, he appears to be unwilling or unable to end the pointless occupation and domination of Iraq. He shows every intention of escalating America's doomed adventure in Afghanistan and no objection to spilling that into Pakistan.

He could have chosen economic reforms that allowed the bad actors in the financial collapse to absorb their own losses, and allow the market to reallocate their squandered assets to new segments of the economy. Instead he chose to reward all the most guilty players, such as Ben Bernanke and Tim Geithner. He chose to perpetuate and expand the "failed policies of the Bush Administration," increasing government waste, championing government debt, and inflating the dollar. From an economic standpoint, Obama's "Change" meant no more that "more of the same – only much, much more."

From the bursting of the dot com bubble in the late 1990s, to this decade's wars and the inflating of the real estate bubble, the bipartisan federal policy has been to artificially stimulate the economy by debasing the dollar -- distorting the market with counterfeit money. The current recession, -- millions unemployed and hundreds of thousands of newly homeless families -- has been the direct result. Obama's solution? More of the same.

On Tuesday, he spoke to a mob of AFL-CIO members, bragging that his stupid "Cash for Clunkers" put about 1,000 of them back to work. Of course, the added shifts at GM plants came on the heels of unsustainable, artificial stimulus, meaning those workers will soon be out of work again, unless or until the government implements a Cash for Clunkers II.

A few days earlier he was repeating the mindless idea that federal law should limit pay for bankers and establish new bureaucracies to oversee their activities. In other words, he wants to implement price controls on services and wages, and spend billions of dollars to regulate banker's activities; to do what the market can do for free.

My friends, if you feel your banker is paid too much, if you think he is taking bad risks, then remove your money from that bank. Problem solved, pay restricted, no more risky loans. And it costs nothing.

Real change would mean eliminating the moral hazard in financial markets by letting insolvent banks and businesses fail, letting prices fall and market corrections take place. If Obama had followed that policy, the recession would be over by now. Instead, he has rewarded the worst actors on the scene and handed us the bill. In so doing he has given us an depression that shows every potential of lasting a decade or longer, possibly much longer.

Change indeed. What a joke. I cannot find any difference at all between this administration and the previous one.

Economist Hans-Hermann Hoppe said the difference between monarchs and democratically-elected executives is that monarchs have an interest in preserving the well-being of the realm so they can leave it to their heirs. Presidents, on the other hand, don't give a flip what happen after their term expires.

The Bush-Obama Crash has provided the best evidence yet that monarchy might not be such a bad idea.