PrintFebruary 5, 2011
Obama Regime's Cynical Exploitation and Callous Indifference
It has become more difficult as each day dawns to listen to the ramblings coming out of Washington D.C. It is either a case of abject ignorance or a deliberate attempt to find out how naive and ignorant the American people are. In the case of Obama it is a combination of both in the case of the Federal Reserve it is the latter.
Today President Obama announced that U.S. business leaders had an obligation, yes an obligation, to the country to hire more workers, pay better wages and keep jobs in the country. He is now calling on American companies to see themselves as partners with the government saying: "That government and businesses have a mutual responsibilities; and that if we fulfill these obligations together, it benefits us all."
Yet, according to the actions of Obama and the Democrats, the obligations are solely those of American business.
There is no word coming out of the White House on any plan to: tackle the massive government deficit and debts; eliminate tens of thousands of pages of regulations; abandon new carbon controls; repeal of ObamaCare; significantly reduce the highest corporate taxes in the world. Those issues simply move forward while the businesses Obama expects to fulfill his new edict compete with the rest of the world with an anchor (all the above) attached.
These words are meant for political consumption. As jobs creation continues to stagnate due solely to the policies of the Obama administration, he will point to business saying he asked them to fulfill their obligations to the people and those greedy capitalists did not. This is a blatant attempt to shift the blame. American business's only obligation is to its shareholders and to a lesser degree its current employees to make a profit and remain afloat. This administration is without any honor or integrity and is only concerned with itself not the American people.
In another part of Washington D.C. Ben Bernanke vehemently denies that the quantitative easing (essentially printing money) by the Federal Reserve has had an impact on world-wide food prices. He stated instead that these impoverished third world countries can control these costs by controlling excess demand within the country.
"Excess demand" -- how does that apply to feeding a population when up to 50% or more of the income goes into just buying basic food items for themselves and their families?
Bernanke offered as a solution: "They can for example, use monetary policy [interest rates] of their own. They can adjust their exchange rates, which is something they've been reluctant to do in some cases"
Not since Marie Antoinette suggested to the starving peasants in France "let them eat cake" has so callous a statement been made. This maybe be a fine strategy in the theoretical world of the classroom but by raising interest rates or adjusting exchange rates, these countries would only succeed in making food items even more expensive, not to mention potentially triggering even more inflation.
The fact of the matter is that by essentially printing another trillion dollars and flooding the world with greenbacks, the Fed has pushed capital inflows into commodities (which are priced in dollars) and into emerging markets. There is little these emerging countries can do to hold back this tidal wave as food prices and shortages will soon engulf the planet creating more uncertainty and ultimately riots.
This is the leadership the United States now has at the helm: callous indifference and cynical exploitation.
