Obama’s “Stimulus” Package – Does Anyone Really Think This Will Work?
Okay, so I realize that I am one of those people who is very one-sided in my opinion – meaning that I have given up on listening to mainstream biased liberal news channels like NBC, CBS, etc.. But I am discovering that even some self-proclaimed “Progressives” (new name for Liberals) are scratching their heads, wondering how in the world our government thinks that they can “stimulate” our economy with more bad spending ideas.
I’m a simple person, so hearing a simple example of how this will all play out was helpful to me. Mike Adams, “The Health Ranger” at NaturalNews.com did a superb job of putting things into perspective.
Take a look at his latest article on the new “Stimulus” package:
Economic Fallacies 101: Government Does Not Create More Jobs Through “Stimulus” Debt Spending
by Mike Adams, NaturalNews Editor
(NaturalNews) While Congress has passed an $800+ billion economic stimulus plan, almost everybody in America seems caught up in a common economic fallacy: The idea that Government can “create” jobs through debt spending.
Government spending of debt money does not result in any net creation of jobs at all. It only confiscates wealth from private citizens and forces them to pay for centrally-planned jobs that the real economy usually neither needs nor benefits from.
Consider three people living in an island, running their own tiny economy. Bob, Sarah and Charlie are all farmers who grow their own food, making an honest living by working 8 hours a day to create the food, clothing and shelter they need to survive.
One day, Charlie decides he wants to be the Governor of the island. He tells Bob and Sarah that as Governor, he’ll bring wealth and prosperity to them both. Initially, that sounds good, so Bob and Sarah agree to elect him Governor.
Then it turns out that the Governor is busy governing things on the island (i.e. deciding what everybody else should do), so he has no time to grow his own food. So he initiates a 50% tax on the productivity of Bob and Sarah, confiscating their food, clothing and resources in order to provide those items to himself without actually having to work for them. (This is a key function of government: To confiscate wealth from those who really work and redistribute it to those who pretend to work.)
Now, Bob and Sarah each have a choice: They can either work twice as much in order to pay their tax and still have enough to survive, or they can quit working altogether and hope to get aid from the government.
Sarah decides to work twice as much, so she starts working 16 hours a day, earning enough to pay the taxes to the Governor while still having some remaining food to feed herself and her family. Bob, on the other hand, decides he doesn’t want to work 16 hours a day and would rather do nothing and apply to the Governor for “public assistance.”
So now on this island of three people, where each of the three people used to work to feed themselves, only one person is working (Sarah), and the other two are living off the wealth that’s being confiscated from her efforts.
One day Charlie, the Governor, says he has a solution! He says he will write a series of IOUs to Sarah in exchange for an extra portion of her food and other belongings. Using that currency borrowed from Sarah, he says he will “create a new job” for Bob and “end unemployment on the island.”
Sarah reluctantly agrees and turns over the fruits of her labor to the Governor, who injvents a job for Bob. “Bob,” he says, “We need to build a bridge across this island!” And with the wave of his hand, he puts Bob to work creating a bridge (that nobody needs) while getting paid by wealth that has been confiscated from the only person on the island still working (Sarah).
So now we have ONE person actually doing productive work, a second person living off the confiscated wealth of that person (the Governor), and a third person working a useless job that’s now paid for by the first person as well. This means we have ONE person supporting THREE. And while the island is at “full employment,” two out of three people are actually doing jobs that don’t materially contribute to the wealth and abundance of island’s residents.
And the best part? Guess who gets to work even more to pay back the IOUs that the Governor traded with Sarah? Well Sarah, of course, because those IOUs are public debt paid back by taxpayers.
The problem on this little island is NOT that insufficient money is being spent on an economic stimulus program; the problem is that the island suffers from too many bureaucrats and too much debt spending. The solution? Fire the Governor and the government worker, shrink the size of government and get everybody back to working their own gardens, growing their own food and supporting their own families. Productivity on the island would triple, and people would have to get back to doing honest, productive work instead of living like parasites off the efforts of taxpayers.
Government jobs are created with confiscated wealth
Although greatly simplified, this little scenario demonstrates the ridiculousness of anyone who believes government can “create” jobs. Government creates no net increase in jobs through debt spending. It only confiscates wealth from those who are willing to work and justifies its own wealth confiscation efforts by pretending to offer solutions to the very people it is stealing from.
In some cases, this is justifiably important: You need schoolteachers, bridges, and roads to run a successful society. Cops and firemen, court judges, and international delegates are necessary, too. But remember this: 85% of government money is spent on just three things: War, Disease and Debt. That’s where most of your tax dollars actually go (see corrected figures below). Only about 15% of the money you send Uncle Sam goes to pay for anything useful. Most of it is just wasted away by a government that believes its debt problem can be solved by more debt spending.
Total U.S. Federal Budget for 2008: $2.9 trillion
If you look at where U.S. government spending actually goes, more than 85% is spent on these three things:
1) WAR: Department of Defense ($481.4 billion) + War on Terror ($145.2 billion) + Dept. of Veterans Affairs ($39.4 billion) = $666 billion
2) DISEASE: Medicare ($386 billion) + Medicaid ($209 billion) = $595 billion
3) DEBT: Debt to the people: Social Security ($608 billion), Welfare ($324 billion) and Interest on National Debt ($261 billion) = $1,193 billion
Combined spending on War, Disease and Debt: $2,454 billion ($2.5 trillion), which is 85% of the total expenditures by the federal government.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United…
Now, Obama wants to write out $800+ billion in new IOUs and use that money to “stimulate” the economy. This is equivalent to confiscating about $5,000 from each and every taxpayer in America today (depending on the number of taxpayers you use for the calculation). It’s the equivalent of saying to Sarah that she needs to turn over all her garden food for the next two months in order to “stimulate” the island economy. And how will that economy be stimulated? By giving that food to people who believe they are entitled to more abundance than Sarah without actually having to work for it. Before long, Bob will be riding in a private limo and flying in a private jet, complaining to the Governor that his industry of bridge building provides 1/3 of the jobs of the entire economy, and he needs more money or the island economy will collapse!
I’m not sure America can survive much more of this debt-spending “stimulus.” The U.S. economy has, in large part, become illusory, propped up by yet more bailout money being spent to create the illusion of meaningful jobs. The idea of saving money has been abandoned in favor of endless spending at both the consumer level and the national level. If this philosophy does not change, the financial outcome will be disastrous.
America needs more savings, not more spending. It needs to get the government off people’s backs, not create even more government to centrally plan yet more “stimulus” programs paid for by confiscating wealth from the fast-shrinking pool of people still working private-sector jobs in America today.
One thing’s for sure: The people in Washington D.C. need to read Economics In One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt: Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics
Original Article can be found at NaturalNews.com
About the author: Mike Adams is a natural health researcher and author with a passion for teaching people how to improve their health He has authored and published thousands of articles, interviews, consumers guides, and books on topics like health and the environment, impacting the lives of millions of readers around the world who are experiencing phenomenal health benefits from reading his articles. Adams is an honest, independent journalist and accepts no money or commissions on the third-party products he writes about or the companies he promotes. Adams believes in free speech, free access to nutritional supplements and the ending of corporate control over medicines, genes and seeds. Known as the ‘Health Ranger,’ Adams’ personal health statistics and mission statements are located at www.HealthRanger.org
I Want MY Bailout Money – Great New Hip Hop Song by “The Health Ranger” Michael Adams
I LOVE this new song by Michael “The Health Ranger” Adams! Here’s the info from his website- and be sure to stop by his page ..
http://www.naturalnews.com/I_Want_My_Bailout_Money.html
I Want My Bailout Money (commentary)
“I Want My Bailout Money” is the first song on the new hip hop album by NaturalNews.com editor Michael Adams (the “Health Ranger”). It is freely sharable for non-commercial use. Enjoy it and share it! (Please give credit to Michael Adams and link back to this page where possible, thank you!) Be sure to read the LYRICS of this song on the right column of this page (scroll down).
Message from Michael: Thank you for your interest in my first hip hop song, “I Want My Bailout Money.” I wrote, arranged, performed and produced this song from my desk, using an HP laptop, some audio editing software, and the same microphone I use for podcasting. The background beats were all commercially licensed from various companies, which I then mixed and arranged to create the music. You can learn more about this by listening to the audio commentary on this song (click the play button, above).
I wrote this song to help spread the message about the unprecedented theft of money from the American people that has been masterminded by the white-collar criminals running our country today. U.S. Treasury officials and Federal Reserve officials have conspired to steal trillions of dollars from everyday Americans by creating insane quantities of new money and handing it over to their rich, incompetent banker friends. It is one of the greatest financial cons ever perpetrated in human history, and yet few people seem to understand what’s actually going on.
This song intends to send a warning message to a new generation of Americans who typically might not read news websites but enjoy entertaining music. The message it delivers is very clear: If we hope to have a financial future in America (or even a future for America as a nation), the People must find a way to take back their money supply from the crooks in Washington and get back to an honest money system that cannot be manipulated by white-collar criminals running the Fed and the Treasury. Flatly stated, if we don’t stop the mad debt spending, end the financial rewarding of incompetent bankers, solve our health care crisis, balance the federal budget deficit and kick the crooks out of Washington, we may soon see an era of runaway hyperinflation and possibly even the financial demise of America as we know it.
Texas Says NO to State Bailouts
Kudos to State Governors like Rick Perry (TX) and Mark Sanford (SC) for saying NO to State Bailouts. In a recent article published by the Wall Street Journal, Governors Perry and Sanford spoke out regarding the seemingly endless bailouts that Washington is considering.
“… the bailout mentality threatens Americans’ sense of personal responsibility.
In a free-market system, competition and one’s own personal stake motivate people to do their best. In this process, the winners create wealth, jobs and new investment, while others go back to the drawing board better prepared to try again.
To an unprecedented degree, government is currently picking winners and losers in the private marketplace, and throwing good money after bad. A prudent investor takes money from low-yield investments and puts them in those that yield better returns. Recent government intervention is doing the opposite — taking capital generated from productive activities and throwing it at enterprises that in many cases need to reorganize their business model.”
Texas Says NO to State Bailout
Proud Rural American
In the months after the release of this audio, I read and heard so many things I found disturbing. First of all, this recording gives a candid picture of Obama’s views of rural American people— bitter, clinging to guns and religion, full of antipathy for people who are not like them.. the words that are said when he thinks the world is not listening.
Then later, as he tries to explain away his poor choice of verbage, he comments over and over about “tradition” and “hunting” and all other kinds of bizarre reasons why gun owners would want to keep their guns. Then he links the religion comment to his stance on abortion (huh?)
Where in the world is this man coming from? It seems that the harder he tries to dig out, the more he shows his true lack of understanding why the entire comment was so out of line in the first place.
Obama, by making these comments, exhibits his ignorance about all those who live in rural America. It’s not so much about our rights to bear arms or practice (or not practice) our religions, it’s about an an attitude expressed about a people that he claims to want to lead. It appears that the antipathy lies within Mr. Obama, not within the rural community. He doesn’t understand us, so he slanders our beliefs and values.
I’ve seen it over and over, even within my friends who live in the northern metro areas. They think that people who live in the country are backwards, in need of socialization and are desperately missing what they have. Very odd… those same people are the ones who envy my freedom and solitude, my land ownership and come to me for help when their computers are on the blink. If being different from them means I am backwards – then I proudly embrace backwardness!
I often wonder how they can stand to live the way they do.. neighbors so close to them that they can reach out and touch their houses from their side windows.. arguing over the height of their grass or the color of their shutters… who has the biggest SUV and the smallest cell phone..
One of my blogging friends lives in NYC. While we have lots of things in common on the net, I think our worlds would collide disasterously in real life. Just as my other friend could never understand why I would choose the Grand Ole Opry over a Broadway musical any day of the week.
When it comes to religion, I think that Obama made nor lost any ground with his statements. It’s apparent that he doesn’t have a clue when it comes to faith in a higher power and that it is much more than just a “tradition” passed down from generation to generation for most of us. Hopefully some day he will discover it for himself – I wouldn’t want to deprive him of that, even if I oppose just about everything he stands for.
So I close with this statement, and I hope that there are others out there who understand exactly what I am saying:
I am PROUD to be a RURAL AMERICAN! This doesn’t make me WRONG, or BACKWARDS, or LACKING in any way. If anything, it puts me in a group of elites as well – and I am so blessed to be here.
Available at
“To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them.”
(Richard Henry Lee, Virginia delegate to the Continental Congress, initiator of the Declaration of Independence, and member of the first Senate, which passed the Bill of Rights.)
