A Preview of The United States Under President Obama

[Larry Sinclair]

This what happens when you "redistribute the wealth:"

Zimbabwe inflation hits 11,200,000 percent

Zimbabwe's inflation rate has soared in the past three months and is now at 11.2 million percent, the highest in the world, according to the country's Central Statistical Office.

Official figures dated Monday show inflation has surged from the rate of 2.2 million percent recorded in May, despite the government's price controls.

The country's finance minister confirmed the new figure in an interview but said the rising inflation rate was not confined to Zimbabwe alone.

"While our case has been aggravated by the illegal sanctions imposed by the Western powers, rising food prices are a world phenomenon because of the use of bio-fuel," said Samuel Mumbengegwi. "But we will continue to fight inflation by making sure that prices charged are realistic."

In February, the price of a loaf of bread in the country was less than 200,000 Zimbabwe dollars. On Monday, that same loaf of bread cost 1.6 trillion Zimbabwe dollars.

Analysts have said the Zimbabwean government's official inflation rate figures are conservative. Last week, one of Zimbabwe's leading banks, Kingdom Bank, said the country's inflation rate was now more than 20 million percent.

The locally-owned bank predicted tougher times ahead for Zimbabwe in the absence of donor support and foreign investment in an economy that has been in freefall for almost a decade.

Once considered the breadbasket of Africa, Zimbabwe has been in the throes of an economic meltdown ever since the country embarked on a chaotic land reform program that has decimated commercial agriculture.

Analysts say the crisis has worsened following President Robert Mugabe's disputed reelection in the June 27 presidential run-off. His challenger Morgan Tsvangirai boycotted the race over widespread allegations of violence and voter intimidation.

The economic crisis has destroyed Zimbabwe's currency and made it difficult for Zimbabweans to buy basic commodities, electricity, fuel, and medicines. Many Zimbabweans have left the country amid rising unemployment and deepening poverty.

Last week a summit in South Africa of regional African leaders failed to persuade Zimbabwe's political parties to agree to form a government of national unity, which observers view as the best way to end Zimbabwe's record recession.

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/BUSINESS/08/19/zimbabwe.inflation/index.html

[Mudcat]

Interesting article - ridiculous and desperate trying to link it to Obama.

[wtf]

Interesting article - ridiculous and desperate trying to link it to Obama.

i am dying to know something, how does it feel to always be right?

[Mudcat]

I don't really bother with silly rhetorical questions like that.

You feel there is a good solid link between this article and Obama?

[Larry Sinclair]

Interesting article - ridiculous and desperate trying to link it to Obama.

I don't think we will have 11 million percent inflation, but here is definitely commentary you may want to consider as it relates to Obama's stated economic plans:

http://politicallydrunk.blogspot.com/2008/10/so-if-obamas-bottom-up-redistribution.html

[wtf]

mugabe instituted policies very similar to what obama articulated in that radio interview a few years back. trying to level things out. ouch.

taking farms away from successful operators giving them to his cronies who never operated a farm in their lives. trying to be robin hood i guess.

anyway now that this has been exposed obama probably wont do it since everyone will be watching for it, so it is moot.

[JC]

This what happens when you "redistribute the wealth:"

Zimbabwe inflation hits 11,200,000 percent

Zimbabwe's inflation rate has soared in the past three months and is now at 11.2 million percent, the highest in the world, according to the country's Central Statistical Office.

Official figures dated Monday show inflation has surged from the rate of 2.2 million percent recorded in May, despite the government's price controls.

The country's finance minister confirmed the new figure in an interview but said the rising inflation rate was not confined to Zimbabwe alone.

"While our case has been aggravated by the illegal sanctions imposed by the Western powers, rising food prices are a world phenomenon because of the use of bio-fuel," said Samuel Mumbengegwi. "But we will continue to fight inflation by making sure that prices charged are realistic."

In February, the price of a loaf of bread in the country was less than 200,000 Zimbabwe dollars. On Monday, that same loaf of bread cost 1.6 trillion Zimbabwe dollars.

Analysts have said the Zimbabwean government's official inflation rate figures are conservative. Last week, one of Zimbabwe's leading banks, Kingdom Bank, said the country's inflation rate was now more than 20 million percent.

The locally-owned bank predicted tougher times ahead for Zimbabwe in the absence of donor support and foreign investment in an economy that has been in freefall for almost a decade.

Once considered the breadbasket of Africa, Zimbabwe has been in the throes of an economic meltdown ever since the country embarked on a chaotic land reform program that has decimated commercial agriculture.

Analysts say the crisis has worsened following President Robert Mugabe's disputed reelection in the June 27 presidential run-off. His challenger Morgan Tsvangirai boycotted the race over widespread allegations of violence and voter intimidation.

The economic crisis has destroyed Zimbabwe's currency and made it difficult for Zimbabweans to buy basic commodities, electricity, fuel, and medicines. Many Zimbabweans have left the country amid rising unemployment and deepening poverty.

Last week a summit in South Africa of regional African leaders failed to persuade Zimbabwe's political parties to agree to form a government of national unity, which observers view as the best way to end Zimbabwe's record recession.

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/BUSINESS...ion/index.html

This has to be you MS. Can we get an IP check please?

[Mudcat]

I am starting to feel bad for the Republicans. There must be some intelligent ones out there fighting to make a reality-based case for their position.

But this is the public face that the party has taken on. Nuts putting absurd spin on anything they can find, scratching backwards letters into their face.

Hopefully many of them will see that the party they believed in has abandoned them and follow Colin Powell's move.

[pavyracer]

Why is ms61853 pizza guy allowed to sign up as Larry Sinclair now?

[Mudcat]

Why is ms61853 pizza guy allowed to sign up as Larry Sinclair now?

I am wondering why he would change his identity. Because of the self-mutilating chick thing?

He could have just put some spin on it and it wouldn't have been any more absurd or embarrassing than anything else, including this.

[daggerkobe]

Welcome back racist pizza boy!

We've missed you!!!!!!!!!!

[Larry Sinclair]

I am starting to feel bad for the Republicans. There must be some intelligent ones out there fighting to make a reality-based case for their position.

But this is the public face that the party has taken on. Nuts putting absurd spin on anything they can find, scratching backwards letters into their face.

Hopefully many of them will see that the party they believed in has abandoned them and follow Colin Powell's move.

In remarks made on the campaign trail yesterday, according to Senator Obama, his redistributive tax policies are based upon a belief that, "That is how we have always grown the economy, from the bottom up". The problem that I have, however, is simple: History just doesn't support that statement.

So my challenge today is simple: Name me a time in which our economy has ever grown from the bottom up?

Now just as a reminder, remember this: In order for even lifelong Democrat's to believe that Senator Obama's tax proposals are the right move, then you would also have to prescribe to the belief that Herbert Hoover and Lyndon Johnson were correct; and subsequently that John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan were wrong.

When the progressive tax was instituted in 1913 at a 1%-7% rate and the effects of the tax were never known as US industry was soon mass producing war materials. The top marginal rates quickly rose during the war, with a promise by Wilson that they would return to lower levels after the end of the war.

Between the wars we saw the wartime rate slowly lowered to 25%. In early 1932, facing a deepening 2 year recession, Hoover raised tax rates up to 63%; 1932 would become the worst year in terms of the rise in unemployment and loss of GNP/GDP; that year the nation would fall into a technical depression. Roosevelt would not raises taxes again until the end of 1936 and once again unemployment would dramatically rise in the following 24 months before settling into a 19% unemployment rate on the eve of WWII. Despite rising federal tax revenues throughout the 30's and ever-increasing deficits, by the onset of WWII and the "War Economy", they had no measurable positive effect on the economy.

Taxes would be raised during WWII and then again at the end of the War to help slow US economic growth and assist in the rebuilding effort.

In the early 60's, President Kennedy would embark on a campaign to bring "tax fairness", his words, back to our economy. In Kennedy's own words, "It will be a major aim of our tax reform program to reverse this process, by broadening the tax base and reconsidering the rate structure. The result should be a tax system that is more equitable, more efficient and more conducive to economic growth."

Kennedy would go on to state, "The final and best means of strengthening demand among consumers and business is to reduce the burden on private income and the deterrents to private initiative which are imposed by our present tax system — and this administration pledged itself last summer to an across-the-board, top-to-bottom cut in personal and corporate income taxes to be enacted and become effective in 1963.

I'm not talking about a "quickie" or a temporary tax cut, which would be more appropriate if a recession were imminent. Nor am I talking about giving the economy a mere shot in the arm, to ease some temporary complaint. I am talking about the accumulated evidence of the last five years that our present tax system, developed as it was, in good part, during World War II to restrain growth, exerts too heavy a drag on growth in peace time; that it siphons out of the private economy too large a share of personal and business purchasing power; that it reduces the financial incentives for personal effort, investment, and risk-taking. In short, to increase demand and lift the economy, the federal government's most useful role is not to rush into a program of excessive increases in public expenditures, but to expand the incentives and opportunities for private expenditures...

For all these reasons, next year's tax bill should reduce personal as well as corporate income taxes: for those in the lower brackets, who are certain to spend their additional take-home pay, and for those in the middle and upper brackets, who can thereby be encouraged to undertake additional efforts and enabled to invest more capital."

In speech after speech on taxes, Kennedy would promote what he referred to as his "TOP-to-BOTTOM" approach to tax fairness. Congress would eventually pass Kennedy's tax-cut in 1964 after his death, but the cuts were less than Kennedy had originally proposed.

In 1968, Lyndon Johnson would reverse the economic policies of Kennedy and raise taxes in his final year in office. The economy would soon enter into the 1970's which would become a period of rising inflation and no economic growth.

Following his election in 1980, Reagan would revive the "Top-to-Bottom" approach sought by Kennedy 20 years earlier. The Reagan tax cuts would be based upon the across the board tax-cut proposals of Kennedy.

The reality of history tells us that in no period since the birth of this nation has economic growth ever occurred from the bottom-up. The industrial revolution was fully financed by the wealthy of the age, the Rockefeller's, Carnegie's, Morgan's and others. They profited dearly, but more importantly laid the basis for what would become the modern economic structure.

Today, Senator Obama wants to talk about a revival of bottom-up economics, but to what period of time is this revival tied too. The last time I checked, Americans hold President's such as Kennedy and Reagan in high regard, with little regard to Johnson or Hoover. Are we now to revise history, to believe that Hoover and Johnson were right.

Senator Obama has stated that he merely wants to return tax rates back to the rates in place during the Clinton Administration. Yet, that's not accurate. The only rates that Senator Obama wants to revert are the rates at the top of the scale, while maintaining and expanding the bottom-level tax cuts provided by the Bush Administration. The result would be a tax system with a shrinking tax base, the very system that President Kennedy fought against.

Senator Obama also wants to take the system one step further, by not only providing tax cuts that would lead to more Americans not paying taxes, but would also provide "credits" to the nearly 40% of Americans who do not currently pay taxes. That is not a return to the Clinton years and it is not a return to any previous Presidential Era in this nation's history.

So my questions still stands...Name me a time when our economy ever grew from the bottom up?

Were Kennedy and Reagan wrong?

Were Hoover and Johnson right?

Name me a single President who ever proposed direct redistribution of wealth? (p.s. a U.S. President)

Explain any part of that that you think is absurd spin?

[pavyracer]

Larry Sinclair,

If you want to be taken seriously in this forum post your own opinions. Copying and pasting will not move a single poster here to vote for your candidate.

[Willie Bee]

Hey Sinclair, you from Wichita Falls, Texas, by any chance? Welcome to SBR

Who do you like in the Cavs-Celtics game tonight?

[Larry Sinclair]

Hey Sinclair, you from Wichita Falls, Texas, by any chance? Welcome to SBR

Who do you like in the Cavs-Celtics game tonight?

Haven't started following NBA yet.

[daggerkobe]

Who do u like.... FSU -10.5 @ NC St?

[Tchocky]

Yeah...the similarities between the USA and Zimbabwe and Obama and Mugabi are uncanny. Why didn't anyone notice this before?

[Justin7]

This has to be you MS. Can we get an IP check please?

Already done. It's a different one.

[Justin7]

Both this user and MS had a habit of copy/pasting without quoting the source.

[smitch124]

Obama's future cabinet patiently awaits election results

[McBa1n]

Interestingly enough - if you're someone that reads the news every day, you'll see great parallels between Zimbabwe and the US over the last 8 years in regards to cronism that is destroying a nation.

But I guess we're going to have that kind of inflation when the socialist Obama 'redistributes wealth' (or just tax the rich higher, like when the economy was booming for EVERYONE).

Of course, Zimbabwe has a global economic prescence and a monsterous GDP and a diversified economy that equally rivals the united states, so clearly - it will happen since the cronism has already brought approval ratings and confidence indexes to record lows - not to mention the stock market. We're already on our way!

There's no way to prove how intelligent you are than comparing a 3rd world nation to the United States economically - and calling it a 'preview'. Uh - if anything, it just reinforces what the nation has gone through in the last 8 years, so actually, with any ability to critical think and put 2+2 together, you just trashed the current administration. Well played, sir, well played!

[ryanXL977]

why didnt you give us a preview back in 2000
made up war, katrina, debt, deficit, job loss, 911

coulda used that shit

[WestsidePete]

Hey MS/Larry,

Look at my avatar...this chick works for your cause buddy....