Who Has Done More to Better the Human Condition, Obama or Gates?

In the political world of the U.S. there are almost daily calls for the evil rich to pay more taxes to support the government. Barack Obama is fond of saying the millionaires and billionaires do not pay their “fair share, ” while refusing to precisely define what is their fair share.

What must be concluded is by fair share Obama and the other politicians mean they want substantially more money, maybe an unlimited amount. According to the Wall Street Journal, in the 2000s, the top 5% of wage earners averaged paying 28.4% of their income in taxes and paid 40.3% of all income taxes collected. According to Obama, they still do not pay their fair share.

Obama also rails against corporations and their tax breaks which he calls “subsidies.” He said these tax breaks should be ended, calling them corporate welfare. He also criticizes companies for opening facilities overseas, thus depriving Americans of employment opportunities on American soil. Meanwhile his policies make it more and more expensive to hire American workers, thus encouraging corporations to look overseas.

Obama claims to be the champion of the little people, the poor, the downtrodden, the shrinking middle class. He promises them cash and prizes extracted from the evil rich and corporations. Well and good, but how has he actually preformed?

The centerpiece of his first term in office was the Affordable Healthcare Act. It was supposed to cut healthcare costs for everyone using a Byzantine system that so far has resulted in more than 14,000 pages of new rules and regulations. The truth is neither Obama nor a single member of congress had even read the bill before they passed it. Result: Last year health care premiums went up 14%.

Obama also promised to lower unemployment significantly, and has spent some 4 trillion USD to stimulate the economy. Result: The rate of unemployment has stayed around 8% for the last 4 years, while 8.5 million gave up looking for work and dropped out of the labor force. If these 8.5 million were included, the unemployment rate would be more than 14%.

This led me to thinking about Bill Gates, Chairman of Microsoft. Who has benefited humanity more, the president of the most successful country in the world, or the Chairman of one of the most successful corporations in the world? Obama or Gates?

Both Obama and Gates were born in 1961. That’s where the similarity ends.

Gates dropped out of college and founded Microsoft. He took a chance with his life, and ended up being wildly successful. Obama took the safe path of working for others, most particularly government, the safest of employers. Though he was very successful within the welcoming arms of the government.

Obama is a cog in the machinery of government. Maybe a very important cog, but a cog nonetheless. Gates is a very successful stand alone entrepreneur, and arguably the most important single businessman in the last 100 years.

Microsoft’s products have enabled many to start successful businesses of their own, save money by being able to shop and plan more efficiently, enjoy their free time, communicate, make money by developing and selling software applications, and generally work smarter and more efficiently. Obama’s government impedes these things by adding rules, restrictions, taxes and fees to nearly every aspect of business and life.

Windows based, or Windows compatible products, have been partially responsible for enabling communications that led to the ousting of dictators and despots all over the world. Obama leads from behind the French

Microsoft employs nearly 100,000 people, more than half in the U.S. with the rest spread out all over the world. The work they do creates wealth. Obama’s government employs many more people, but as government employees, they create no wealth. They only consume the wealth created by others.

Microsoft made millionaires of many of its employees, and billionaires of a few as it created capital with the production and sale of its products. Obama and his government have not created a single cent of new capital, but to be fair, they have made a few people wealthy with their crony capitalism schemes.

Obama forcibly takes money from certain citizens to redistribute to others. Gates started a charitable foundation to voluntarily give his wealth away in ways he decides will help the most. Leading by example, Gates has successfully convinced Warren Buffet, Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), and maybe others to join him.

Obama gave the world the Chevy Volt and Solyndra. Gates gave the world Windows.

Microsoft stock is trading around $27. per share. If a person had bought the stock when initially offered, it would have cost about .09 per share after figuring in splits and inflation. Thousands (millions?) of people have bettered their lives by investing in Microsoft. If someone had bought government bonds at the same time as the Microsoft IPO, after taxes and inflation, the value of their holdings today would be lower than the initial investment. Not all Obama’s fault, but he did nothing to correct things.

Obama is quick to step in front of TV cameras to take credit for this or that, no matter how tangentially was his actual involvement. The killing of Osama bin Laden is a good example. Gates works largely unheralded and purposely unnoticed as has gives away his fortune. Ronald Reagan once said, “There is no limit to the amount of good you can do if you don’t care who gets the credit.” Obama does not agree.

So who has done more to improve the lot of humanity? Despite his grandiose claims and endless self puffery, Obama has done little. Gates wins hands down.

The State of the Union Speech

The United States constitution says “(The President) shall from time to time give to Congress information of the State of the Union and recommend to their Consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.” That has turned into the State of the Union speech which is usually delivered in January or February each year.

While the subject of the speech is not specified, it usually involves statements about the condition of the country and the president’s legislative outline for the year to come. This year’s address followed that pattern.

One of the president’s most ambitious proposals was to raise the minimum wage. He pointed out that a family of four can not live with one or both parents making the minimum wage. He failed to point out that even at his proposed new level, the family of four would still be living in poverty. He ignored the question of whether or not a family earning minimum wage should even have a family, and why it is society’s responsibility to save them from the consequences of their irresponsible behavior.

I’m sure the Obama apologists would say it’s for the innocent children. Everything is for the children. But Obama ignored the generous government aid already given this mythical family, such as food stamps, housing assistance, meals for the kids at their school, fuel assistance, WIC, and a legion of other programs.

Most people work minimum wage jobs when they are young and first enter the work force. Occasionally there may be other reasons for taking a low rung position, like being laid off. Unless they are lazy or incompetent, most people quickly pass on to higher paid positions. A person may start as a fry cook at minimum wage. If he doesn’t burn the fries, he will get wage increases and maybe a promotion to hamburger maker, then cashier, then assistant manager.

Right now there is 25% unemployment among young people. Making hiring them more costly will hardly bring that number down.

The Fix-It-First program was introduced. To illustrate his point about how badly the American infrastructure is in need of attention, the president cited the figure of 70,000 bridges needing repair. Fix-It-First would supposedly address this and many similar problems.

The 2008 trillion dollar stimulus was supposed to fix the infrastructure. But only only 10% ended up going to what are called “shovel ready” jobs like repairing bridges. And instead of being a one year injection into the economy, the stimulus has been built into the budget for the last 4 years. So the government has spent 4 trillion dollars and we still have 70,000 bridges that need attention? Does anyone other than the clapping seals that are congressional Democrats think throwing even more borrowed money at the problem will solve it?

Instead of cutting spending, Obama proposed new taxes and fees. The government’s work is too vital for it to have to tighten its belt like ordinary citizens must do in tough economic times. Taxing, borrowing money, printing money and spending money will cure everything. After four years of this, unemployment is higher than it was when Obama took office while the economy is growing at about 1%.

The president mentioned ending taxpayer subsidies for drug companies. Drug companies do not get subsidies. They get a tax break for research and development costs. A subsidy is what Obama gave Solyndra. Taking away r&d tax breaks would harm the development of new pharmaceutical products, but it plays well to his mindless constituents who are economically illiterate and hate capitalism.

Obama said his health care law was slowing the rise in health care costs. I Googled “health care costs” and didn’t find a single article or report that supports this contention.

Obama gave himself pats on the back for immigration reform, housing reform, gun control, and and he laid out a veritable grab bag of statist ideas, all of which would be made possible under his superb leadership at no cost to the taxpayers.

The most disturbing aspect of the speech was Obama’s vision of himself. One commentator noted he used the word ”I” 56 times. Clearly he thinks he has all answers to all problems. Obama has mentioned several times that if congress doesn’t give him what he wants, he’ll go around it. Besides being unconstitutional this is an indication of megalomania.

Obama painted a bleak vision of society and the future unless his plans are implemented. Under his guidance he promised the emergence of paradise. But in his utopia the individual suffers. In Obamaland the individual must be stripped of his individualism. A person’s loyalty must be to the state, not family, not self, or church.

Utopianism is irrational. It ignores human nature and human history. With utopianists like Obama the past is ignored. Instead everything starts today with a new program, a new prediction and new promises. Obama talks of little more substantial than hope.

The mastermind is ruled by delusional visions of his greatness. His own ambition is substituted for those of the masses. His governance is crafted from his own fantasies. In the short term some may benefit, but over time society corrodes.

There is a website called regulations.gov where proposed new regulations are posted for public comment. In the next three days 150 regulations are planned to be enacted. In the next 30 days there are 724. 1046 are scheduled for the next three months. Each of these rules takes away freedom and individualism. It is part of the process of subjugation.

Obama instinctively knows if he is seen as infallible, people will be willing to follow him. He drones on about the mythical future, not reality. He talks of little more substantial than hope and change. He wants more taxes, and regulations. Less individualism. If he gets his way paradise will arrive. To get there he must strip the individual of uniqueness. So Obama assigns each citizen a group identity based on race, gender, religion, or income.

He divides the people and pits them against each other so they can be more easily manipulated. Obama has given us the “War on Women,” the evil rich meme, and he frequently attacks corporations. This is class warfare at its finest and most destructive.

If only I am allowed to force my vision on the country, Obama thinks, everything will be good. This ignores history where time after time similar schemes have failed miserably. But Obama is sure he is wiser than those who came before him. He believes he can do things right. In the USSR, Stalin said Lenin didn’t do things right, but promised he would, and 50 million starved. Then Khrushchev said the same thing about his predecessors. In the mean time the people suffered for 70 years while waiting for the promised bright future that never came.

Obama is bent on improving the lot of the malcontent, the miscreant, and the failure, while tearing down the successful and happy by imposing crushing regulation and heavy taxation on them. Equality in outcome equates to equality in misery. The general good is defined by the state, not by the individual. This is Obama’s hope for America. In his State of the Union speech he laid out part of the plan for his top down iron fisted system.

 

From Today’s Pravda

The following is an excerpt from an article by Xavier Lerma. The full piece is found here: http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/07-11-2012/122728-obama_president-0/

The Reason Obama Is President

The Democrats and Republicans are notorious for wanting to stay in power. Their worshipers get their education from TV and their friends. In the future, after it becomes obvious that their plan failed, these “useful idiots” will still blame Bush for the economy, overlook Obama as they overlooked Clinton’s mistakes or think their vote counts and they actually have freedom while approving of wars overseas. Such people are the product of America‘s decaying society whose reality has been warped by drugs and other selfish pleasures. America has gradually become worse from the drugs, rock and roll of the 60′s and 70′s to the drugs and rap music of today. The communists won while Americans smoked pot.

I Stumbled upon Pravda

A couple of days ago I stumbled upon Pravda, the ex-mouthpiece of the communist party of the former USSR. One of its stories was referred by Drudge.

It was an eye opening experience. Some of the stories included Obama phenomenon: Hope and disappointment, Puppet State America, and Death of the West and Decline of the East. All of these stories were written from a perspective that would be considered ultra right wing in America today.

What has happened to the leftist Russian media? Did it move to the right or has American media moved to the left? I suspect it was a little of both, but it is the US media that changed the most.

The scary part of this transition is that the US media is leading the public and politicians down the road that the statists in Russia tried in the past and rejected.

 

Equality of Opportunity vs. Opportunity of Outcome

“Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.” Alexis de Tocqueville.

With the re-election of Barack Obama on November 6, the U.S. officially voted for itself to change from a society where equality of opportunity is no longer highly valued. Instead it decided to become a nation where equality of outcome reigns supreme.

From colonial times until recently Americans took pride in being rugged individualists. The colonists came to an unknown land to establish themselves in the land of freedom and opportunity. Most came to the colonies from Europe hardly knowing what to expect, but anxious to find out.

Most early settlers had little if any money, and America did not welcome them with a vast array of social services to keep them warm, dry, and well fed. They came with little more than determination to carve out good lives for themselves and their families.

Social Darwinism, the philosophy that the fittest members of society could, would, and should, rise to the top was widely accepted. While rising to the top, society’s winners created giant corporations and small enterprises which employed the members of the bottom layers of the country, so everyone benefitted. The system seemed to work. Everyone’s life improved.

If people fell on hard times due to sickness, accident, or other circumstances, they could usually count on aid from family, friends, and the church. There was no government safety net to catch them when they fell. The community rallied around them.

The philosophies of rugged individualism and Social Darwinism worked well for more than 200 years in America. Was it perfect? Of course not, but slowly and surely things improved for most everyone. The big improvements were the end of slavery, women’s suffrage, and the civil rights movement. But as things improved for the majority, an increasingly shrill minority began to grow. This minority was highly discontent.

This minority believed the rich got rich at the expense of the poor, and therefore owed the noble poor a share of their wealth. They believed the economy was like a pie. If someone got a large piece, the others got smaller pieces.

They were opposed by the majority who believed the pie was always expanding as the economy grew. If someone got a large piece, in a growing robust, and vibrant economy, the remaining pieces would grow larger too.

Slowly but surely the people unhappy with society began to grow in number. Their cries became ever more audible. Starting in the 1930s with the New Deal they, as a group, were strong enough to get national legislation passed.

All the while those unhappy with America as it was began to complain that the evil rich, bankers, and Wall Street were holding the rest of society back. Trade unions grew strong. Capitalism was said to be the culprit, not the solution.

In the 1960s President Johnson rammed his Great Society through congress. Combined with several civil right acts, equality under the law was established. Things looked rosy for a while, but there was a fly in the ointment.

The Great Society solved some problems, but it caused many new ones. The way the welfare laws were written led to the dissolution of families. This in turn caused a collapse of communities. Neighbors no longer helped neighbors. Instead they looked to the government. With no sense of community there were fewer restrictions on behavior. Crime went up.

The rich were not evil when it was FDR or JFK who were wealthy. In 2004 John Kerry, the richest man in the Senate, ran for president and he was not vilified for being very affluent. In fact I can’t remember when his hundreds of millions were discussed in a negative way at any time during his failed campaign. By 2012 being rich had become being evil. Romney was vilified for being rich, and Obama’s campaign constantly decried the rich for not doing their “fair share” to help the nation.

No longer is it acceptable to say different people have different abilities and should expect different outcomes in life. Instead of hard work, intelligence, and a little luck being the reasons for success, the malcontents blamed the roll of the dice. In other words, people were rich and successful because they were lucky. Of course this philosophy became very popular with many in American society.

In 2008 for the first time ever America turned toward a candidate who promised to bring the lower classes up while tearing down the achievers. He promised to take from the achievers and give to the non-achievers, thus leveling society. He made great strides at keeping this promise during his first term.

In 2012 Barack Obama was re-elected president despite presiding over the worst economy since the 1930s. His failure to cut the deficit in 2008 was forgotten as spending and government debt ballooned. He promised he had only begun the transformation of America, and his re-election gave him his mandate to do so. in 2012 America changed from a land of equal opportunity to a land of equality of outcome.

 

Stealing from My Neighbor

 

A while ago I found myself in desperate financial stress. I had unpaid bills, an overdue mortgage, and the city was threatening to turn my electricity off. To be honest I was in trouble because I had lived beyond my means and lost my job because of poor performance. Oh yes, I almost forgot about the little drug problem I had.

I noticed my next door neighbor had been doing well. In fact he had just gotten a promotion and a big raise. I decided I would go to his house, hold a gun to his head and demand he share some of his money with me. I knew that would be both illegal and immoral, but I was desperate.

Fortunately I didn’t have to rob my neighbor. The government tax man came to his house and demanded part of his money. If he refused the government would put him in jail, so he complied. The government took his money, skimmed off 20-30% in administrative fees, and sent me a nice check with what was left. I also got Food Stamps, a voucher for children’s needs, and was eligible for subsidized housing. Since I lost my telephone service, the government gave me a free cell phone. Getting money from my neighbor in this manner was considered both legal and moral.

Because the government confiscated so much of his salary, my neighbor didn’t feel he was properly rewarded for his efforts at his job. He quit working so hard. He didn’t like giving 40% of the fruit of his labor to me and others. It made him resentful. So at his job, he filled his desk and did little more. His efficiency fell as did the efficiency of his entire company. Innovation declined.

This story was not true, but it illustrates what is going on in America and much of the west. A few days ago Mitt Romney remarked tat 47% of Americans do not pay income tax, and therefore are more or less lost to a candidate who wants to decrease the size of government, thereby lowering dependency on it.

The corrupt media and his political opponents jumped all over his remark, saying he was heartless and didn’t care about the poor. This is untrue, but that didn’t stop the dishonest commentators and misleading ads running on TV. In fact Romney wants to help the poor by lessening their dependence on the government. He wants to re-establish the American values of independence, hard work, and self reliance. His opponents want to increase dependence and are not at all shy about using class warfare to do so.

Once being rich and successful like Romney was considered a good thing in America. The rich were admired. Children wanted to grow up to become rich. In America it was possible to become successful with hard work and good habits. Some of our recent presidents like Kennedy and Roosevelt were rich, and it was never considered a negative. Under the great divider Obama, being rich is somehow being evil.

Now equality of outcome is becoming more impotent than equality of opportunity. This is not a good way to go. The government can not make a stupid or lazy person smart or ambitious. But it can kill the initiative of the ambition of others by taking away the rewards of their labors. This is Barack Obama’s vision for America. He is intent on making as many people as possible wards of the state in return for their votes.

His now famous “Julia” campaign ad Obama pictures a woman who depends on government assistance from birth until death. She gets assistance from her pre-school years until her retirement. In no stage of her life was she completely responsible for herself. The government happily helped her through her life.

Julia had a good life thanks to the government. The fly in the ointment was that the government has no money or resources of its own. The government generates no revenue, the government produces nothing. The only money the government has is extracted from its citizens. So in other words, Julia is living from the labors of her fellow citizens. She uses the government as an instrument to take resources from some and give them to her. This works out well for the takers like Julia. Not so much for the givers, and not so much for society as a whole

 

Who Won the Budget Deal?

The recent budget deal has been characterized as a victory for Republicans because there were budget cuts and no tax increases.

It is questionable whether the Democrats really lost the debate. The government gets to keep spending like Greeks. The national debt is scheduled to increase by some 8 trillion dollars over the next 10 years, and it is a certainty there will be a lot of additional spending added bring the deficit way higher.

The Republicans got a small amount of spending cuts over 10 years – most of which are so covered in smoke and mirrors we will never see them. The only meaningful budget cuts are a few billion over the next two years.

In the mean time how many more times will the debt limit have to be raised over the same 10 years so the spending can increase? The deficit is scheduled to continue to grow at nearly a trillion a year, so several increases are inevitable. The only thing the Democrats didn’t get was a tax hike…yet. The so-called super committee has yet to unveil its work.

“Let’s Reach for Hope”

“Let’s reach for hope” is Obama’s campaign slogan of the week. But he doesn’t say how reaching for hope will accomplish anything.

He doesn’t say what to do with hope when you grasp it. If you have a handful of hope, can you take it to the bank? Or the grocery store?

What are we supposed to be hoping for? Rain? Socialism? A chicken with 4 wings and 4 legs?

It sounds to me like a handful of hope doesn’t really count for much.