Obama, Keynes and Liberty

There is so much going on...so many outrages being committed by the Obama Crew that sometimes it's hard to keep up.

All the subterfuge, all the diversions, all the lies and prevarications...are being used to hide the big elephant in the room: Economic Freedom and Stability.

And he's doing everything he can to destroy both.

I'm reading a book called The Failure of the New Economics by Henry Hazlitt. It is a fairly detailed and complex analysis and critique of John Maynard Keynes' economics. In other words, a lot of it is tough slogging for someone with no formal background in the subject.

But Hazlitt is pretty brilliant at making even laymen like me not feel too stupid. He, if not Keynes (of which I have had to read entirely too much in this volume) is a writer of clarity and wit.

I bring this up because Keynes is a leading proponent of the sort of economic policies the Obama administration and the Democrat congress are engaging in: The idea that government spending, of any sort, is the answer to the problem of recession.

That is not Keynes' only point, but it is certainly among the ones that makes his "brand" of economic thought most pleasing and palatable to bureaucrats and tyrants.

While we watch Obama & Company do everything possible to screw up the economic situation, everything that is, by any sensible, rational, intelligent person or economist who believes actual economic prosperity, precisely the opposite of what should be done, the question arises..."What the hell is wrong with these people?"

I think that Obama and his posse are lightweights, in over their heads.

And I think that it's possible that they've been sold on Keynesian economic theory. It certainly convenient for statists; it appeals to their predisposion to grab as much power as possible, and to use government as a economic player, a sledge hammer, an extortionist, a briber, a sword of Damocles, a punisher, and a dictator as required for their purposes. Sound familiar?

Hazlitt, a disciple of the Austrian School of economics, considers Keynes' "Grand Theory" of economics to be "rubbish". And after reading all too much of it, I'd have to agree. His major focus seems to be to create an entire economics around his central socialist core belief that money wages (never mind real wages) for "labor", should never under any circumstance whatever decrease.

He is a Marxist in gentleman's clothing. He never actually uses the term, but his foremost interest in the creation of his confusing, backward, convoluted, absurd, through-the-looking-glass "theories" all bend like light around a black hole....toward the absolute dictum that wages for labor are paramount.

This is his opinion of the Free Market:

"It is of the nature of organized investment markets, under the influence of purchasers largely ignorant of what they are buying and of speculators who are more concerned with forecasting the next shift of market sentiment than with a reasonable estimate of the future yield of capital-assets, that when disillusion falls upon an over-optimistic and over-bought market, it should fall with sudden and even catastrophic force of capital, determined, as it is, by the uncontrollable and disobedient psychology of the business world. it is the return of confidence, to speak in ordinary language, which is so insusceptible to control in an economy of individualistic capitalism." (My italics)

Remember, his biggest influence was the Great Depression.

And he does not mind giving his brutal conclusion:

"I conclude that the duty of ordering the current volume of investment cannot safely be left in private hands."

That's clear enough. So when you hear politicians proclaim that they are "Keynesians", this is what they mean: Government spending, and Government control of investment. It means they're Marxists, Statists who want to control the economy, and take away your economic freedom, which is the foundation of all freedom.

The only question is, are they destroying the United States economy because they really believe it's best because they actually believe in Keynesian economics, or do they just claim to be Keynesian because his economics gives them cover to grab economic power? It's strictly an academic question, of course, because what they want will destroy our country, and our liberty, whatever their intentions, so we have to fight them tooth and nail.

Keynesian Economics is a recipe for economic chaos — because in spite of his lofty reputation among some, his theories are "utter nonsense"— and his ideal social system is totalitarianism.

The Gunslinger