“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.”
– Wilkins Micawber, David Copperfield
Smart people tell me that a great country cannot regulate its finances the way a family should. Even smarter people, however, nod with satisfaction when they encounter Mr. Micawber’s little disquisition on the economic concomitants of psychological felicity. “I never will desert Mr. Micawber,” they say, echoing Dickens.
It was perfectly obvious before he took office that Barack Obama did not subscribe to this aspect of the Gospel of Micawber. But not all of Obama’s admirers, I’d wager, understood how firmly he embraced another tenet of the Micawber philosophy: to wit, “something will turn up” — the deus ex machina approach to economic resolution, brought down to earth and entrusted with our secular salvation.
When it comes to money, Obama seems curiously divided in his mind. On the one hand, he is not averse to spending gobs of it — millions, billions, trillions. Who’s counting? There’s always more, he seems to think, where that came from. It’s the spigot theory of economics: just turn the handle of government authority, and presto! the tax receipts, the fees, the garnishments, the sundry redistributed adjustments flow in like rain water after a storm.
Money for Obama is the great tool — the great weapon, even — of social reconstitution. There are piles and piles of it about, and all he needs to do to fulfill his campaign promise to “fundamentally transform the United States of America” is move some rather hefty piles from your squares on the gameboard over to the squares marked “nationalized health care,” “educational reform,” “welfare” — I mean “tax cuts for 95 percent of Americans,” and the like.
On the other hand, Obama is suspicious of money. He seems to believe it carries a moral taint, especially when any significant amount of it finds its way into the hands of ordinary citizens. I don’t mean to suggest that he has any objection to money personally. Clearly, he thinks it is OK that his wife pads off for a photo op at a local soup kitchen in sneakers that cost$540. But in the larger sense — i.e., when he thinks about society as a whole — he deprecates wealth and the acquisitive instincts that make its accumulation possible.
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32 Comments
1. David Thomson:“Who’s counting? There’s always more, he seems to think, where that came from.”
This is where the stuff is likely to hit the fan. Lenders are quickly learning that Obama has no hesitation to play them for suckers. The recent Chrysler investor rip off taught them a cruel lesson. Where is the Obama administration going to get the money—especially from foreign countries like China?
May 13, 2009 - 9:25 am 2. Pajamas Media » The Meaning of Obama:[...] Read the rest of the story here. [...]
May 13, 2009 - 10:40 am 3. Kersplat:It’s not just Chrysler and their bondholders, it’s also GM’s bondholders, and the State of California (with SEIU). And now we hear that the government is contemplating control of ALL Wall Street compensation, not just those who participated in TARP. This is all about control, via any means necessary, including complete disregard for any rule of law or the Constitution. There is enough of a pattern here, a consistency to actions taken, to give one much more than a pause. People need to be very very worried.
Add to that — there are so many Americans who don’t see anything wrong with our government employing these types of tactics (those few that even have a clue it’s going on). Wake up folks, this is FASCISM. And it’s our whole government — this partisan culture war is just a distraction to keep the rabble bickering.
May 13, 2009 - 11:17 am 4. anton:“…suggest that he has any objection to money personally”
Or when he collect several million from a German publishing house, or gets land for a fraction of the true value, or finagles a 100% pay raise for his wife’s part-time job…… I could go on, but you get the point.
Kleptocrats love money, their money, your money, business’s money, all sorts of money, as long as they can get their hands on it. The more they spend the more there is to skim.
May 13, 2009 - 11:21 am 5. Teleprompter Jesus:You’re forgetting my divine nature. A deity can’t be bothered with such mundane (even dismal) trifles.
May 13, 2009 - 12:05 pm 6. Pee Wee Herman, Community Organizer:In the world of community organizing, that’s called “supply side economics”. As long as my side is supplied, that’s all that matters.
May 13, 2009 - 12:10 pm 7. Self-hating Boomer:If all people created their own wealth, there wouldn’t be a need for community organizers, now would there? Then he’d have had to figure out how to actually create wealth, rather than shuffle it.
May 13, 2009 - 12:13 pm 8. Meryl:Oh, dear!
This column explains so clearly what we are dealing with in his Fraudship’s financial personality and perceptions re the great unwashed people (and his frustration that they are actually the only place to get all that money from).
The reason I say “Oh, dear!” is because it is another one of those times where having the problem clearly stated certainly does not make a person hopeful about what happens next.
As long as no one (apparently) is either able or willing to stop him, it’s not over for awhile, is it?
May 13, 2009 - 12:57 pm 9. Pastor of Muppets:“Let your mercenary tendencies be combined with honesty”, is the Trollope quote.
It’s not the word “mercenary” in that statement that’s the problem, it’s the word “honesty”.
The success of Capitalism relies upon an educated class of consumer who has access to the knowledge necessary to make good business decisions.
However, deregulated Capitalism creates an environment in which the Joe Cassanos and Bernie Madoffs of the world profit from an environment in which vital business knowledge is purposefully withheld from consumers, thereby robbing consumers of the ability to be educated consumers. The system then inherently devolves into a banquet for the most dishonest among us, and implicitly nurtures dishonesty in the rest of us by illustrating that it is the Joe Cassanos and Bernie Madoffs who become the gold standard for success.
As a rational, ethical human being, is it not justified to critique, and when possible, reform, a system that rewards dishonesty? Or ought we to simply accept that the business owner or entrepreneur has the right to be dishonest, and that therefore the consumer ought to accept that he will always be at a disadvantage in business transactions and should be perpetually cynical?
Is this what we want? A system that breeds distrust and enmity between our producers and consumers? How long can such a system be sustained?
May 13, 2009 - 1:27 pm 10. Delia:9. Pastor of Muppets:
“As a rational, ethical human being, is it not justified to critique, and when possible, reform, a system that rewards dishonesty?”
Social Security is another Ponzi scheme too.
Borat Dohbama and his tax dodgers are another set of d-bags that need a critique upside the head and Dohbama didn’t mind doing underhanded things for his wife’s salary, for his land purchase and to get elected via ACORN thugs and unaccounted-for ‘donations’.
I’m all for regulations that keep checks and balances in place… But, people can still be fools with their money regardless.
Slap-Chop! Only $19.95.
May 13, 2009 - 2:06 pm 11. JED:America’s credit rating has already begun to slip as entitlement spending has entered 13 digit numbers. Since there is no standard for such a radical change in the economic system and no immediate sign of return on investment, it is not entirely amiss to project that the Obama power play is a gamble.
May 13, 2009 - 2:16 pm 12. jw:The lack of checks, balances, and proceedures in the congress have put the economy all in for the unproven ideal.
The large companies that went under including Fannie May and Freddie Mac were said to be too big to fail. The USA may also be too big to fail. Dinosaurs were too big to fail. The insistance on rushing through legislation or else greatly increases the risk and the cost of failure just as quickly. The history books are full of the failures of quick fix ideals.
Plato describes Obama in The Republic, Book IX, the tyrannical man. ( And why did Obama want to “transform the United States.” which is a pretty good country?)
May 13, 2009 - 3:10 pm 13. Sebastian Shaw:President Obama is your typical limousine liberal Socialist: Rules are for the little people. The Democrat Socialists do indeed live in two Americas as well where class warfare is cherished, hating America is king, & Obama deatly wants to wear the priceless crown.
The problem lies in this thinking is not based on reality & the real world. Even the real world will intrude on the doublespeak elites & the House of Cards Obama has carefully built will come tumbling down as he falls like Humpty Dumpty & cracks.
May 13, 2009 - 3:27 pm 14. The Historian:OBAMA IS A CONFUSED UTOPIAN
Just consider his VP selection!
http://greensrealworld.blogspot.com/2009/05/biden-selection-speaks-volumes-about.html
May 13, 2009 - 3:27 pm 15. Cybergeezer:Thanks for the great laugh, Roger!
May 13, 2009 - 3:49 pm 16. Cybergeezer:Seriously, though; We just about have enough for a class action EEO Complaint against this incompetent fool and his chosen servants.
May 13, 2009 - 3:57 pm 17. MiamaMan:Sure, Opossum POTUS sure likes the money he has in his pocket, whether fraudulent, or in the form of a friendly discount by Syrian friend “developer” and Chicago mafia man and felon Reszko.
@ 10. Delia: You the best – Borat Dohbama, I always enjoy your posts very much, you should get together with a certain Suzy, a certain LynnB girl, and Meryl and start a good blog.
May 13, 2009 - 5:07 pm 18. MiamaMan:12. jw:
“Plato describes Obama in The Republic, Book IX, the tyrannical man. ( And why did Obama want to “transform the United States.” which is a pretty good country?)”
You got that right jw, O’Bamo ain’t a transformer, but a nihilist, his aim is not to transform, but to destroy, after his mentor Jude Sweine Alinsky.
May 13, 2009 - 5:11 pm 19. Ed Wallis:“Pastor of Muppets #9″ has learned his lessons very well from “The Manchurian Candidate”…spouts off just like Angela Lansbury (likely without the fabulous hairdo)!
May 13, 2009 - 5:34 pm 20. Moogie:“The government doesn’t have any money; only people have money. The government only gets money by putting its hand in your pocket and taking it out.” – Milton Friedman
Master of Puppets: I’ve recommended this to you before, but I’ll go ahead and leave this link with you once again:
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=milton+friedman&emb=0&aq=0&oq=milton+frie#
And for Milton on Donahue, try these on (shown in 5 parts):
May 13, 2009 - 6:24 pm 21. lefroy:http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=milton+friedman&emb=0&aq=0&oq=milton+frie#q=milton+friedman+on+donahue&emb=0
Question: does Obama subscribe to the notion, so beloved of the over-simplifying left and half-educated college students, that the US somehow deserved the psychotic slaughter of 3000 innocents on 9/11? He tried to appoint Chas Freeman, a man who condemns America’s “lack of introspection” about the causes of 9/11 (read: it was at least partly our fault) to the National Intelligence Council.
Incidentally, whenever you drill down on a middlebrow leftie and ask him/her to articulate HOW the US was to blame for 9/11, you never get any coherent or rational response.
May 13, 2009 - 8:03 pm 22. Wally Lind:Obama is for a centerally planned and controlled economy that will take us into socialism, and he is for lifesytle changes, such as using less energy on a personal basis. He has the ecomomic crisis and climate change as excuses. They always have excuses, don’t they? I haven’t struggled with what to call the President, as many have, he is quite simply a neo-communist. He wants to control your life and behavior and seeks the power to do so. The part that gets down to individual lives is simply totalitarian.
This is not new with Obama. The leftists (neo-communists)have been working on this for many decades. In the 50s they tied to subvert the governmant, and got what, !% of the population behind them. In the 60s they tried to blow us up and force us to change. That was the path of morons like Bill Ayers. in the 70s they tried to humiliate us by handing South Vietnam to the communists, and trying to give them Central America. In the 80s, they finally got wise and started to take over our colleges, especially teachers colleges. In the 90s they started to disguise themselves as moderates and, since 2000, they have spent every moment and every effort in ridiculing traditional America and Americans.
They have got it all now. All the power of government, handed to them by the governed. All we can do is wait and see how they do. The econmomy will improve, with or without their intervention, but they will take, and be given the credit. The one area they can’t spin forever is foreign policy and warfighting. Bush succeded, in Iraq and, by extention, in Afghanistan. The success in Iraq will be the result of the Bush intiated Petraeus counter-insurgency doctrine, which will also be used in Afghanistan, and will also go to Bush’s historical credit.
May 13, 2009 - 9:37 pm 23. QueenOfSparta:The Meaning of Obama. Just what the heck does he ever mean?
May 13, 2009 - 9:50 pm 24. Old Soldier:At the last press conference when he talked about his 1st hundred days he went on to talk about the next 100 days being done in 72 days and on the 73rd day he would rest! Rest? From all the friggen devastation? Must be exhausting work…did anyone catch that? I remember somewhere in the ooops.. let me get my gloves on..the Qoran saying something about 72 virgins..I’m just sayin’
A friend of mine has a great article about Right Wing Extremists here:
The American government is officially
out of control, and has murdered the Constitution! We the
People have aided in this killing, and it didn’t start
with Faux-bama at the helm. Let’s start with this little
tidbit of information, the uncla*sified (meaning: not kept private)
National Security Letter.
What is that you ask?
Read More here:http://www.nocompromisemedia.com/
Also, see interview with Alan Keyes May 14th at 6 pm PST
Puppet – “Is this what we want? A system that breeds distrust and enmity between our producers and consumers? How long can such a system be sustained?”
No a system that breeds hate between producers and the government that robs them of their earnings to give to the lazy and well-connected. That’s much better. We’ll see how long that system can be sustained before civil war ensues.
May 14, 2009 - 5:25 am 25. Brian Richard Allen:“” Only a couple of times in our nation’s history have fundamental differences divided us. The result then was not pleasant. There is no reason to believe it will be any more pleasant this time around. “”
This time around it will be called The Second American War of Independence. The outcome will be the restoration of our beloved fraternal republic. Which outcome will be as pleasant in the medium and long term as has, for more than two hundred years — and but for the period during which the feral gummint attacked and defeated the Confederate States — has been the outcome of the first.
Brian Richard Allen
May 14, 2009 - 6:20 am 26. East Coast View:Los Angeles Califozerocated 90028
And the Far Abroad
Interesting blog and post, but it’s missing an important part of the equation: Generation Jones, born 1954-1965, between the Boomers and Generation X. Google Generation Jones, and you’ll see it’s gotten a ton of media attention, and many top commentators from many top publications and networks (Washington Post, Time magazine, NBC, Newsweek, ABC, etc.) now specifically use this term.
It is important to distinguish between the post-WWII demographic boom in births vs. the cultural generations born during that era. Generations are a function of the common formative experiences of its members, not the fertility rates of its parents. Many experts now believe it breaks down this way:
DEMOGRAPHIC boom in babies: 1946-1964
Baby Boom GENERATION: 1942-1953
Generation Jones: 1954-1965
Generation X: 1966-1978
Here is a recent op-ed about GenJones as the new generation of leadership in USA TODAY:
May 14, 2009 - 8:06 am 27. Whistle_Blower:http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20090127/column27_st.art.htm
My God – can’t people right a coherent, grammatical and lucid sentence, let alone paragraph, anymore?
If writing is a reflection of thinking and if thinking often leads to action, then Inkosi Obama has nothing to worry about 4 years hence when he’s up for re-election.
The main reason Inkosi Obama is where he is now is because the “voting public” were dazzled by his command of English, superficial though it may come across to some.
If his opposition can’t present something other than a stuttering, smirking analphabet in 2012 (why does that sound so far from today?), he’s going to win again.
Kierkegaard said he left the discovery of the enigmatic meaning of his works to the reader because “the task must be made difficult, for only the difficult inspires the noble-hearted.”
But he didn’t mean difficult like in “incoherent” or “rambling”.
Phew. Unbelievable.
May 14, 2009 - 11:19 am 28. PosyPriss:27. Whistle_Blower:
“My God – can’t people right a coherent, grammatical and lucid sentence, let alone paragraph, anymore?”
Hmm. You blew your whole rant with that first sentence, unless you plan on teaching people how to ‘right’ sentences and paragraphs rather than ‘write’ them.
May 14, 2009 - 2:11 pm 29. Oakley:Yep, Obama is a “double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.”
James 1:7&8
7 For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord,
8 being a (S)double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
May 14, 2009 - 7:32 pm 30. Steynian 355 « Free Canuckistan!:[...] ROGER KIMBALL– “The Meaning of Obama, Part I, with a Lesson from Trollope and an admonitory afterword [...]
May 15, 2009 - 12:38 pm 31. misanthropicus:RE # 9/POM [...] It’s not the word “mercenary” in that statement that’s the problem, it’s the word “honesty”. [...] However, deregulated Capitalism creates an environment in which [...]
POM, it’s the word, or rather notion of “deregulated” from your tirade that causes problems.
Because the “regulated” capitalism, that is any type of socialist or communist societies ever present in the world, from fleeting falansters to the Soviet Union to… say, Zimbabwe, fails, their citizenry suffering terribly.
Don’t talk about French eatatism, about the “Scandinavian experience”, and other versions of these, generally European countries, because they, while “capitalist”, are states on the verge of economical collapse – to them all applies what Margret Thatcher said “the problem with spending other people’s money is that you will pretty soon finish it” (and after this, you introduce the Zimbabwe solution, i.e. printing money, notion Obama is very comfortable with).
Then, while occassional Bernie Madoffs appear in de-regulated capitalist countries, the same Madoffs are constant presences in in these “regulated capitalist” countries – as far as the Bernie Madoffs of the socialist/communist countries, that’s an oxymoron, because both socialism and communism are simply swindles, or vast Ponzi schemes where a national security/justice/one-party apparatus defends the scamsters who moved in the mansion.
Yes, with Obama enforcers like you POM, we sure can rapidly become a larger equivalent of any communist Eastern European country – where base sycophants like you POM, will find a nice niche as court praisers, day-in-day-out lauding the Genius From Hawaii, The One, The Most Beloved Son Of America, The Living Embodiment Of Most Exhalted Wisdom, The Mighty Benevolent One, etc. – comrade Barry Soetoro.
Ugly job you have POM, to inflict y/self here and there on the Internet, then try to camouflage the truth that during these days we simply see ourselves engulfed by a creeping, enslaving socialist/ internationalist coup, engineered by a collection of irresponsible adventures. And it looks that you enjoy it, also –
9. Pastor of Muppets:
“Let your mercenary tendencies be combined with honesty”, is the Trollope quote.
It’s not the word “mercenary” in that statement that’s the problem, it’s the word “honesty”.
The success of Capitalism relies upon an educated class of consumer who has access to the knowledge necessary to make good business decisions.
However, deregulated Capitalism creates an environment in which the Joe Cassanos and Bernie Madoffs of the world profit from an environment in which vital business knowledge is purposefully withheld from consumers, thereby robbing consumers of the ability to be educated consumers. The system then inherently devolves into a banquet for the most dishonest among us, and implicitly nurtures dishonesty in the rest of us by illustrating that it is the Joe Cassanos and Bernie Madoffs who become the gold standard for success.
As a rational, ethical human being, is it not justified to critique, and when possible, reform, a system that rewards dishonesty? Or ought we to simply accept that the business owner or entrepreneur has the right to be dishonest, and that therefore the consumer ought to accept that he will always be at a disadvantage in business transactions and should be perpetually cynical?
Is this what we want? A system that breeds distrust and enmity between our producers and consumers? How long can such a system be sustained?
May 16, 2009 - 5:32 am 32. kenny komodo:Previous Presidents have rightfully believed they are “renters” residing at the WH and it is their duty to care for it (and the country) as best they can. Obambi, on the the other hand, seems to believe that he owns the WH and to hell with the rest of you. That would explain his $100.00 per pound steak dinners, his flown in from St. Louis (I think) pizza chef, his weird little dog that no one has ever heard of, his super duper play set for the kids, Michelle’s $500 + sneakers and all the other trappings of power he so much enjoys. This guy seems to relish Marine One and AF One as his own personal craft to get around town with his posse and crew of acolytes. I have to wonder how a lib manages to look at someone square in the eye when discussing Obambi.
May 16, 2009 - 9:23 pm