The market has been undergoing the kinds of gyrations that marked the beginning of the end for John McCain’s presidential campaign. President Obama was elected because voters believed he’d turn around the economy. But he hasn’t.
One reason for this failure is that President Obama has a fundamentally static view of economics: wealth exists. It’s just there, waiting to be taxed. You have money or you don’t. Obama has never understood that wealth is fluid-it must be created. The wealth creators-known as “fat cats” in contemporary Washington-must use their money in ways that benefit them. If they do this, more people will have jobs-they will be “green jobs” in the sense that they are paid green stuff to do them, which is the kind of green job everybody wants.
But the rich aren’t doing this right now. Wayne Allyn Root makes some statements that are too out there for me in this piece, but he makes one point that is on target: the rich are on strike. For Root, what is happening is a case of life imitating fiction because he sees it as the realization of the storyline of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. I’ll leave that idea to others, but I definitely see this:
To rationalize the fleecing of innovative business owners and job creators, the looter class demonized the wealthy, just as Obama and his socialist cabal are doing in real life today.
Okay, it’s probably smarter not to throw around wild terms like “socialist cabal.” But this description of the rich on strike should be chilling for those who support the president’s economic policies:
The Census proves that Obama’s tax and spend philosophy is a dismal failure, an economic disaster killing jobs. It is no coincidence that 1.9 million FEWER Americans are working than before Obama’s stimulus. It is no coincidence that jobs are not returning to the private sector. It is no coincidence that tax revenues have dropped dramatically and cannot support Obama’s bloated Big Brother government. The innovators, risk-takers, and wealthy he demonized and punished are on strike.
The high tech revolution has killed the progressive-liberal tax-and-spend dream. Because of the Internet, email, Facebook, Twitter, Skype, Satellite TV, I-phones, I-pads, and cell phones, business owners are no longer prisoners of Big Brother. Take a look at states where the latest Census shows Americans moved during the past decade: Nevada, Texas, Arizona, Florida, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alaska, Virginia – all low- or no-tax red states, states that lead the USA in economic freedom.
Now look at states they escaped from: New York, New Jersey, California, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Illinois, Michigan. Taxpayers, business owners, jobs creators, retirees with assets are fleeing the high tax, big spending, Big Brother states – the states being run like Obama is running the nation.
Progressives be afraid, be very afraid. If Obama is re-elected, these valuable producers will pick up and leave America altogether. There is a big world out there begging them to come. Places like Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Monte Carlo, Belize, Costa Rica, Panama, Bahamas, and Cayman Islands are low-tax havens that appreciate business owners and their sacrifices. They welcome wealthy ex-patriots. They celebrate individual achievement.
No doubt, the president would think he can makes some new rules to prevent this–just like his National Labor Relations Board is trying to tell Boeing it can’t set up a plant in the business-friendly state of South Carolina. But ultimately, without a drastic change of policies, the rich will remain on strike.