7/5/12

Prog Formula Works Like A Charm

How Statists Are Getting Away with It
Government does smother growth, for example. But it does so slowly and incrementally, making it difficult for the average person to notice from day to day or year to year. Armageddon never comes. We don't go over some "cliff."

Because of this, statists have been able to get away with growing government without alarming the populace. To the average voter, government grows a bit every year, yet things get a little better every year (on average, over time), so there must not be a conflict. In fact, many believe that more government caused the improvement.

I can explain all this in fairly precise terms -- an equation, in fact.

Growth = 7% - 0.1 X Spending

"Growth" is the annual percentage growth rate of real GDP, and "Spending" is total government spending as a percent of GDP.

If government were all but nonexistent, growth would be near 7% per year. Growth happens; government didn't need to do much of anything beyond enforce property rights and some amount of rule of law. On the other hand, if government spent 70% of GDP, growth would be zero. And if government spent even more than that, GDP would shrink.

But in between government spending zero and 70% of GDP, some amount of economic growth will occur. Suppose government spending is 40% of GDP. Then the real growth rate would be 7% - 4% = 3% per year, or about the average growth in the U.S. from 1968 to 2008.

If our statists can be patient and accept incrementalism as a strategy, they can convince enough people enough of the time that conservatives are unnecessarily alarmist, that economic growth is compatible with big government, and that things are actually getting better, probably because of big government.

In the meantime, they'll be taking about half of everything, and you won't know you could have been a lot better off without them.

It's an awesome strategy. It's about 80 years old now, and working like a charm.
(full story at americanthinker.com)

How Barack Obama Saved Detroit

GovMo: Taxpayer Losses On GM Bailout Rise to $35 Billion
The cost of the Obama Administration's bailout of General Motors keeps rising. GM shares fell to a 2012 low of 19.57 Tuesday.

If you recall, GM's starting share price in the company's initial public offering (IPO) after the bailout was $33 per share. Most experts estimated that the stock would have to rise to at least $52 and by some estimates as high as $103 in order for the taxpayers to just break even on the large block of shares the government was holding as 'collateral' for the $85 billion bailout.

As it turned out, the IPO was a huge bust and the Obama Administration was forced to dump stock at below market prices, something probably against SEC rules if a private investor did it.

The losses on the stock sale plus the declining price of the 26.5% of GM, or 500 million shares the taxpayers still own adds up to $16.6 billion...not counting the $26.4 billion in direct aid that's never been recouped.

There's also that $45.4 billion dollar tax credit against future profits at the American taxpayer's expense given to them by the Obama Administration that could keep GM tax free for years. GM earned a $7.6 billion 'profit' in 2011 but paid no taxes.

The gifting of GM to President Obama's union allies was simply a transfer of wealth directly from taxpayers to the unions who invested millions in campaign work hours and in contributions to get the president elected, and you can bet that a substantial amount of the taxpayer money spent to keep GM alive will simply be 'recycled' back into campaign funds for President Obama and his fellow Democrats.
(from joshuapundit.blogspot.com)



How Barack Spent July 4th

Sad Obama Rewind: Happy Dependence Day!

Image:

(story at iowntheworld.com)

Eugen Fischer, Bloody Thursday, National Labor Relations Act

On this day: July 5
Venezuela declares independence from Spain (1811)

Germany takes possession of Cameroon (1884)

"Bloody Thursday": Police open fire on striking longshoremen in San Francisco (1934)

The National Labor Relations Act is signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1935)

b: Eugen Fischer (1874); d: Tom Mboya (1969), Kenneth Lay (2006)


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