Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain

Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain:

Dems post-debate strategy furthers public mistrust.

Mistrust of government and those in power is as old as our nation and to an extent often viewed as healthy. With modern media, people can observe certain events firsthand and are not left to journalistic conclusions or governmental reports. People are in a better position to challenge or simply not believe assertions made by those in power. This is what happened as 70 million watched a debate that revealed Mitt Romney is a real person and not the caricature drawn by hundreds of million of dollars in advertising and media dissemination.

It is easy enough to understand from recent events why the public would be skeptical of government and those in power. The public was told the bank bailouts and the stimulus bill were needed to save the economy. The economy has underperformed and the actions have disproportionately helped cronies and those with power. But it is hard to convince people that the counterfactual action was preferable- leeway in judgment was granted. The affordable care act was partisanly pushed into “pseudo” law. The President says it was the right thing to do. But it is hard to convince otherwise since large portions of the law have been outsourced to regulators and are yet to be written. Even the general outline and consequences of the bill have been hardly read let alone understood. People are skeptical, but grant a benefit of doubt until they understand it better. The Federal Reserve asserted there was no housing bubble, followed by saying it was contained to sub-prime, and now argues that continually funneling cheap money to banks and bank owned assets will help turn around the declining housing market and economy. We know they were wrong before and we are yet to see conclusive results now. Fortunately for the Federal Reserve board, they are not subject to public elections.

President Obama usurped congressional authority by executively enacting parts of the proposed “dream act.” The actions may not have been legal, but you don't see actionable congressional backlash and there is a consensus that general immigration reform and border protection needs to happen. The benefit of a doubt can be given to the President, he says it was the right thing to do. A similar benefit could be granted for the explanations to economic setbacks the last few years- a Japanese typhoon, bad weather, European problems among others.

In some situations, time has a way of clarifying doubts. President Bush said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). There was skepticism but many granted a benefit of a doubt. Great efforts were made to find the alleged weapons of mass destruction but over time the search proved fruitless. The administration unhappily admitted their error, but they dealt with the situation- they reaped what they had sown.

A pernicious trend has eroded the heretofore granted benefit of a doubt. Those in power have denied what the American people could plainly see or discern from modern media and did not do what was right or reap what they had sown. The trend is not just in politics.

In 2010, a Detroit Tiger pitched what would have been a perfect game. An umpire admittedly made a wrong call on what would have been the final play and spoiled the achievement. The baseball commissioner failed to overturn the call and do the right thing. Just days ago, an umpire made an errant infield fly call that altered an important baseball playoff game. Those with the power to do the right thing, did not.

A blown call by NFL replacement referees was shocking enough to resolve a lock-out, but those in power did not admit a mistake in the call or do the right thing. Where is the accountability?

Tragically, our ambassador to Libya was attacked and killed at a United States consulate by militant terrorists. The administration has admitted no culpability, has advanced a false narrative and has yet to do the right thing in admitting any mistake. They have yet to offer an explanation to these actions and though the benefit of the doubt may slightly exist, each day without an answer it is eroding.

All of these are examples where the American people could plainly observe that those in power were supplanting truth and logic.

Nobody likes a liar. While political junkies debate strategies of messaging, obfuscation, and ad personam attacks, the American electorate is forgiving. They understand that candidates over-promise, generalize and mischaracterize their opponents. One thing they do ask is that candidates reap what they sow, admit mistakes and not treat the American people as fools.

The Obama campaign's assertion that Romney cheated and lied to “win” the first debate was exactly the wrong strategy. It actually begins to conflate President Obama's remarkably healthy 50% approval rating with one of the issues which his campaign wishes to run on- the 70% of those who distrust the government to “do the right thing.”

The power of modern media was wielded masterfully by the Obama campaign up until recently. At moments they overreached, but overall they succeeded in creating a caricature of Mitt Romney and defined a narrative which hampered his electability.

This effort evaporated as the American people watched the first debate. Romney was not a fictitious monster. And for a reason yet to be known, President Obama was passive in reinforcing his campaign's assertions. Worse, President Obama was equally as passive and unprepared in effectively defending his own policies. Viewers could see that the truth of Romney and Obama had been supplanted by a false narrative.

The same thing is occurring with the explanation from Obama's campaign for the poor debate performance. The media and the campaign portray the President as omnipotent in thought, substance, and communication yet he was unable to retort basic accusations during a debate- or as the wizard from the Wizard of Oz said: “I'll have to give the matter a little thought; go away and come back tomorrow.” “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain” it is Romney you have to worry about- he is cheating and lying. Blame the other guy.

Mr. President, as Dorthy said- “If you were really great and powerful, you'd keep your promises” - you would reap what you have sown. You did not and now you refuse to do what is right- admit you had a bad night.

A simple claim of having a bad night could have assuaged the poor performance. The claim that Romney cheated and lied, whether true or not, does not dismiss Obama's own woeful performance. What it does is pull back the curtain of the Obama machine and activate the evolving mistrust of those in power. 

An interesting Jeopardy Like Question

I have been fascinated the last few years with shouts of "unprecedented", "never seen before",  "things are different!"
I never gave full attention in school, but most students remember the answer to "why do we have to learn history?" So you can learn from it and hopefully avoid the same mistakes.  It seems that those in the position to do the most either ignore the lessons of history or are ignorant of them.  So check out the following Jeopardy style answer:

    He made promises to voters of new prosperity. He was a substantial victor in an election with high voter turnout. It was universally believed he would work wonders, a sort of superman, no problem beyond his capacity.

When he took over the presidency, the Wall Street debacle was already whirring. He could have allowed the artificially low interest rates to rise to their natural level, but government-induced cheap credit was the bedrock of policy. He could let the stock and real estate market liquidate and purge the economy. But that would have meant lower wages and higher unemployment. He decided he would not follow the advice of the liquidationists. He therefore agreed to take on the business cycle deleveraging and stamp it flat with all the resources of the government. He said that the times were unprecedented and required pioneering a new field. He resumed credit inflation with the Federal Reserve adding large amounts of credit. He held conferences with industrial leaders urging to keep employment and wages steady. The labor unions supported and praised this policy. Prominent economists praised his moves and called federal credit expansion the right solution. He increased government spending. He deliberately ran up huge deficits, increasing the government's share of GNP. This was the largest-ever increase in government spending, most of which was accounted for by transfer-payments. He tried to channel government money through the banks and used government cash to try and reflate the economy. He started programs of government intervention to target money to special interests.

When intervention failed to produce the desired results, he doubled and redoubled his efforts. He increased the cash and credit available to his intervention programs. He ignored or bullied Congress, running the administration like a dictator. By this point, however, he had lost control of Congress, which was horrified by the deficit and insisted that the budget had to be brought into balance. The push in Congress was to increase taxes, with the rate on high incomes jumping.

Mostly neutered by Congress, the President still had his interventionist rhetoric and continued louder than ever. He announced if they did nothing it would be utter ruin.

His rhetoric persuaded the financial community that he was pro-labor and anti-business, furthering the deflationary pressures on the economy. This was reinforced by his incessant attacks on the stock exchanges, which he regarded as parasitical. His demand to regulate and investigate Wall Street kept stocks depressed and discouraged private investors. His policy of public investments prevented necessary liquidations. The businesses he hoped to save either went bankrupt in the end or were highly indebted.  He undermined property rights and contract laws by weakening the bankruptcy laws and encouraging moratoriums on debt sales and foreclosures. This impeded the ability of banks to maintain confidence and clean up their balance sheets. After pushing federal credit into the banks he bullied them to increase loans and inflate the economy, a move which would increase the precariousness of the bank's positions.

The Presidents interventionist policies had prolonged the downturn, but it did not stop the unemployment number from increasing. The young artists and academics were empowered to criticize and be hostile towards the structural ideas of free markets, capitalism, individualism, independence, and personal responsibility. They were exhilarated at the unexpected collapse of the “gigantic fraud.” And they instinctively began to support public planning, leaving behind a “period of extreme individualism.” Capitalists who disagreed “would be treated like any maverick... roped and branded and made to run with the herd.” The country could no longer afford “irresponsible, ill-informed, stubborn, and uncooperative individualism.”

Who was it?

Herbert Hoover  31st President 1929-1933

Does the above parallel what has happened recently? Definitely has similarities. Here is what happened (possibly happens) next.

A large blow to the economy came when Europe's economy began to slow. Large European debt had been accumulated and after a leading European bank collapsed the European dominoes began to topple. A U.S. Plan to intervene came too late and other European banks began to shut. Debt repudiation ensued and rampant currency devaluation began. European markets became detached from the U.S and foreigners began withdrawing their U.S. Holdings from U.S. Banks. U.S. Depositors followed suit and a classic bank run brought the system to a standstill.

Landlords had difficulties collecting rent and so could not always pay taxes. Municipal revenues collapsed, hampering the welfare programs and municipal services. Schools were shut, teachers laid off and colleges went bankrupt and shutdown.

Basically, the Great Depression happened. Can we avoid it? I don't know. But I can at least prepare for what I know has happened before, now that I know some more history.