During the state of the Union address, President Obama once again made his case for economic ‘fairness’ to argue for more taxes and a larger government.

Obama believes that fairness cannot be achieved by the private sector of the economy, because people and nations are not fair to each other and they will never be without government policy to level the playing field.

Obama said it this way,

“We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by.  Or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules.”

The only solution that Obama can see is for the government to step in and change the rules that are causing unfairness that result it economic inequality.  Part of this is correct and I’m glad that Obama realizes the source of the unfairness – government policy. 

But the part that he does not seem to realize is that no amount of government policy has ever been able to level the playing field.  And that is because it is impossible for government to make economic policies that are ‘fair’ and without competitive advantages and disadvantage for someone.  The only thing that government policies can do is change which businesses/nations get the competitive advantages and disadvantages.

All Obama can do is take unfair policies away from some companies and create new unfair policies for other companies.  The only question is which companies are politically connected to Obama, so they can get the new policies that create unfair advantages for them.   But this kind of politically determined ‘fairness’ is not fair at all.  In fact, all he is saying is that his influence is for sale to the highest bidding lobbyist. 

Obama is saying that the economy is distorted because the government is corrupt with crony capitalism and he is going to fix it with his own crony capitalism. This is exactly what he is doing with his green energy programs, his support for public education to limit school choices and Obamacare crowding out healthcare alternative competitors.  He is giving the lobbyist and companies that support him politically the competitive advantages by giving them easy government loans, tax subsidies, price controls and direct handouts.

This is anything but FAIR. 

Matthew Spalding from the Heritage Network had this to say;

“The idea that the government can and should step in to guarantee economic fairness is contrary to the founding principles that make America so great-and that enable its citizens to achieve success.  It is contrary to the very meaning of the American Dream.”

In all fairness, the fairest thing to do is to reduce government policies, subsidies, price controls and direct handouts. This would provide more opportunity for more people – equally opportunity – to compete in the marketplace for solutions.  The result would be lower costs, more jobs and a growing economy. 

Obama's idea of fairness is the sources of economic inequality.

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This is unbelievable; in a speech a few days ago the leader of the free world blamed the previous administration for created an adhoc legal approach to fighting terrorism to hold people indefinitely, then told the nation he was going to do the same thing.

After condemning the previous Administration, in a speech which contained his signature poetic language, Obama told the world that we will hold people for 'prolonged detention' without committing a crime regardless of our laws that say otherwise.

This is against the U.S. Constitution, in which we are a nation ruled by laws, yet Obama has gained the power to act outside of the rule of our law - this is an act of lawlessness.  

In the same speech that he condemned the Bush Administration for an adhoc legal approach to fighting terrorism, Obama said his Administration will create his own adhoc legal strategy which will operate outside the legal court system in which all Americans are protected from illegal detention until proven guilty.  

Obama is clearly the most radical President the nation has ever seen.

Here is a startling video showing how radical the Obama Administration really is;

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Yesterday S&P ratings services downgraded more than a dozen of the largest banks in the world, including the six biggest U.S. institutions.

Fearing a major stock market meltdown, the Federal Reserve issued a statement that they are more than willing to make is easier for distressed banks to get access to dollars whenever needed.

The rating cuts will make is more expensive for them to fund their day-to-day borrowing needs, by increasing the interest rates they will be expected to pay when borrowing money.

The rating agencies have been criticized for underestimating the risks of debt for several years, starting with the market crash of 2008.

The funny thing is that S&P only downgraded the banks by one notch, when just about everyone in the financial community known that most of the banks are still insolvent and without the government bailout money from the Fed’s lower interest rates and TARP, most of these banks would already be gone.  They should be rated at junk.

According to the Wall Street Journal article, if S&P would have lowered the rating of Bank of America within the third quarter, they would have had to post an additional $5.1 billion in collateral. But since S&P waited until after the end of the third quarter they don’t have to.

What kind of games are the rating agencies playing? 

Today, S&P said in a report that Europe is likely headed back into a recession, with a 40 percent chance of a severe recession.

But S&P didn’t even downgrade the European banks, like they did with all six major U.S. banks. So it Europe is headed for a severe recession, what is the U.S. headed for?

That is why the Fed hit the panic button. 

The debt crisis is snowballing, which is decreasing the likelihood that government bonds will ever be paid back.  

When government bonds default, nations go broke and financial systems unravel.  The global financial system is so intertwined in the computer age that any nations bonds can threaten to take down the entire system.

That is why the Fed hit the panic button. 

The stock market shot up 400+ points, but there is little the Fed can actually do at this point.  The debt has been allowed to spread to so many nations for so many years that is has changes the entire global economy, from savings and producing to spending and consuming. 

Just like the Fed could not stop the housing bubble from bursting, they cannot stop the global debt bubble from bursting.

The problem with financial bubbles is that sooner or later they always burst and no one can stop them. 

Bubbles burst when the price to pay becomes higher than anyone is willing to pay, and each person is part of the equation.  Bubbles burst when the value of money or work is higher than we are willing to pay for our labor. 

The reason the global debt bubble is bursting is because people all over the world are no longer willing to work to pay for bloated governments and unemployed workers. The prices have become too high.  

The Fed cannot stop the bubble from bursting because it cannot force people to work more hours than they are willing to or capable of working to support the systems that are dependent on their labor.

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In Obama’s Job speech on Thursday, he is likely to call for more than 1 trillion in new spending.

Obama has completely ignoring the utter failure of the last few trillion in spending while he continues to boldly claiming that more government spending is the only way to create jobs.

The reason Obama is unable to look at the mounting evidence against his economic policies, is because he is completely convinced of the liberal economic ideology that government can create wealth by taking money away from productive businesses and spending it on unproductive government projects.

Obama believes that government spending cannot go wrong.  He believes that politicians can make better decisions then CEO’s. He believes that CEO’s are only interested in their own careers at the expense of their workers, while politicians have the best interest of the nation in mind when they spend money. 

Obama does not understand that CEO’s must invest in people in order to create wealth and that productivity and profits are the keys to creating jobs and producing wealth. Business owner cannot produce wealth without creating jobs, and therefore they have a build in incentive to find ways to create jobs.

On the other hand, politicians have a build in incentive to take wealth from the CEO's that are producing wealth and give it to anyone that will secure their votes. The larger the government, the more money that is squandered away as Obama has become the champion of wealth destruction.

Obama’s misguided view of economics also gives him the reason to further hinder economic growth by creating more regulations and government agencies to keep businesses in line. 

These expanded government agencies cost businesses a lot of money, increasing the cost of labor and the products they are trying to sell, which force them to move to other nations to reduce costs and stay competitive or go out of business.

In most cases, business CEO's are not to blame.  They are not the enemy. But as long as Obama is leading the nation in his war on business, wealth depletion will continue and real jobs will never materialize. For an anti-war guy, he has become the worlds greatest anti-business war-lord.

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The Tea Party leaders in the house, did all they could to stop the President from raising the debt limit past the GDP, triggering a credit rating downgrade.

But in the end, Obama and Senate liberals refused to cut spending in anything and a bill was passed last Wednesday at the last minute before a national default would have begun.

Since then, President Obama continues his rhetoric of class warfare, dividing the nation with anger rather than leading the nation into common understanding of the grave economic outlook we face.

Tea Party To Save Nation

Rory Cooper, of heritage.org, had this to say regarding the Tea Party and Obama.

“The Tea Party’s primary focus is our nation’s fiscal health. If it were not for the Tea Party’s positive influence, Congress would still be spending, taxing, and borrowing with little regard for the burden it is placing on future generations. Only months ago, President Obama was demanding a so-called “clean” debt limit increase that would allow him to keep on borrowing without any cuts to spending.”

“President Obama, congressional liberals, and their allies believe that if we remain silent on our fiscal future, then markets and credit agencies will not notice our perilous future. Thus we heard from liberal pundits and politicians who called the debt debate a “manufactured crisis”—as if everything would be fine with more blank checks. The problem of federal over-borrowing and over-spending was and is real, as the credit downgrade and market reactions reflect.”

“Government spending will have increased by 22 percent just on President Obama’s watch.”

Yet, the President and Liberal allies remain delusional, even as the stock markets are crashing around the world. Contrary to all the evidence, they remain convinced that if only they were allowed to increase taxes and continue spending trillions of dollars the economy would be restored.

They owe the nation an apology and their resignation.

According to Zachary Keck, DC Foreign Policy Examiner

“On Tuesday the United States net public debt to GDP ratio reached 100%. That is, the federal government's accumulated debt is equal (actually surpassed) the United States Gross Domestic Product in 2010.

After Congress and the Obama administration passed the debt ceiling limit, the Treasury borrowed $238 billion on Tuesday. This brought public debt to $14.58 trillion dollars, slightly higher than the United States GDP in 2010, which was $14.54 trillion.

Richard Haass, the President of the primer Foreign Policy organization, the Council on Foreign Relations President, has repeatedly argued that the nation's growing debt is the greatest national security threat the country faces. As Yale diplomatic historian Paul Kennedy has convincingly demonstrated, the rise and fall of great powers since the time of the Roman Empire has been driven by the economic vitality of the country. “

In two years, Obama has managed to destroy America’s financial system and once again prove that the economic ideas of socialism (class warfare “tax the rich” by way of forced the redistribution of earned wages or “stealing and spending”) never produce anything but poverty.

America is headed for a decade of poverty, unless the people figure this out quickly and put a stop the destruction path we are on that result from “stealing and spending”.

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It’s seems so easy today for people to say; “capitalism has failed and as a result, we need new policies to redirect and manage the economy”.

Yet an honest look at capitalism reveals just how stupid it is to attack capitalism, the only system that the world has ever been able to product wealth and the source of economic growth for the past century.  

By definition, capitalism is the collection of peoples’ willingness to pay a fair price for the products they need and to get paid an honest wage for the work they do. 

Anyone that is against capitalism is therefore against the collection of peoples’ desire for fair prices and wages.

To say that capitalism failed, is to say that people have failed to pay fair prices for goods and have failed to work for fair wages. That is not what has happen.

Capitalism has not failed. The rules that guide the economy have caused prices (houses, cars, higher education, etc.) to exceed there fair market value.  Those rules are created by the government, but the people elect the government to create the rules that best control competition and the direction of investment funds. 

So if capitalism is the collection of peoples’ desire for fair prices and wages, and the government is the means by which a small group of people can circumvent fair prices and wages (capitalism), then the people using the government to circumvent capitalism are the true source of the problem and the cause of the recession.

Some say this is the weakness of democracy.  When people realize that it is easier to circumvent fair prices and wages (or cheat other people) by electing someone willing to create policies in their favor that give them a competitive advantage, the system begins to fall apart.

The reason the financial system is collapsing is because of a loss of belief in moral goodness.  There is a greater number of people willing to cheat each other, by lying and stealing then by working for a fair wage.

Without a cultural majority that upholds a moral conscious, democracy breaks down until no one in politics can be trusted anymore as corruption engulfs the nation, resulting in a complete government controlled economy. 

That is the path we are on.

Capitalism didn’t fail, it has been circumvented. The solution is to return the nation to its previous moral high standard.  

Of course that is not an easy task, as the bible has been removed from the public schools for several generations which resulted in a nation that continues to attack its foundational Christian values that created the cultural that brought it success, without realizing they are destroying the foundation for future economic success.

Returning to prosperity is not so much about how much money we are borrowing and spending, as it is about what we believe.  These are symptoms of the underlining problem.   If we truly believed “dishonest money dwindles away” – (Proverbs 13:11) and taught it to the next generation, capitalism (fair prices and fair wages) would lead the nation right back to prosperity.

So if you want to help rebuild the economy, you can start by teaching your kids why it is so important to first believe in this simple truth. 

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My grandfather was thirteen when he was living on the streets, riding the rails from town to town looking for work.

The financial lessons he learned at a young age, never left him as he remained aware of the value of money (work) his entire life.

The great depression was a difficult time, but the government eventually did save the nation after many years of failed economic policies by restoring the value of the dollar.

This time, the Federal government is a lot deeper in debt and so far has refused to face the recession, but instead has borrowed and printed more money than any time in the history of the world.  Instead of facing the recession, both state and federal governments have managed to push the nation farther and farther into debt while making the economic conditions for growth much more challenging.

During the Great Depression the housing market dropped 31%, while today it has dropped 33% from the 2006 highs.  The housing market is a major economic indicator because as much as 25% of the economy is driven by the housing market.  Many of the banks remain insolvent, and propped up by the Fed's zero percent interest rates that allow them to remain in business. 

During the Great Depression my grandfather didn’t have zero percent interest rates.  The government raised interest rates in order to grow the economy out of the depression. Zero percent interest rates results in zero percent growth, because without the motivation to save money, no new real savings can be invested in new businesses that have the ability to produce wealth.

Real savings is saving money that represents a measure of work, which can only happen when (1) the value of money is fixed or stable and (2) there is a reason to save it. 

First, the value of money need to remain the same otherwise the work you do to get money will not be worth the money that you worked for. Without the value of money remaining constant, people that have money and are capable of creating wealth have little incentive to work. Without motivating the people that are capable of creating wealth to work, there is no new wealth that is created and no economic growth.  

Second, there must be a good reason for saving money.  The reason needs to be greater than the desire to enjoy it by spending it.  Zero percent interest rates remove the reason to save money.  Without the possibility of an increase in your money when you save it, there is no reason to save money. And without savings, there is no money to invest in business opportunities that produce new wealth. The results are no economic growth.

So here we are, in the summer of 2010, with zero percent interest rates because of the housing market crash that began in 2008 – with no economic growth.

There is no easy way out, and now what we are five trillion further in debt then when the recession stated, it is going to very difficult to increase interested rates – but it is the only way the grow the economy. 

The sin of our generation, which was to covet our neighbor house that put politicians into office to create policies to redistribute wealth, is to blame.  We are reaping what we have sown. We have rejected God and his ideas, thinking we had a better idea and now we face the consequences. 

The laws of God are like gravity, they are unforgiving, they cannot be ignored and the consequences are directly reflected in the economy.

The reason your grandfather's economy was better than yours is because your grandfather’s generation took the wisdom of God's laws to heart, while this generation has nearly completely forgotten them.  

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With nine percent unemployment and much higher percent for young adults, getting a summer job is not an easy task. 

When I was a young adult, it was common for parents to help their children get jobs.  Learning how to get a job was something that schools didn’t teach and so parents taught their children this important skill. 

Of course the only way parents can teach these skills to their children is if they knew them themselves. 

From what I can remember, it sure seems like more people knew the skill of job hunting twenty years ago then they do today.  And if fewer parents today have these skills, then they cannot teach them to their children.  Perhaps we have lost this skill during the boom years, when jobs were much easier to find.  

Here are three steps that I learned from my years as a young adult looking for summer jobs.

1. Take the Difficult Job

I still remember some of the jobs my older brother had to take just to make enough money to pay for college the next year.  He doesn’t even like to talk them because of the bad memories they stir up.  I also worked a few difficult jobs.  One summer I remember taking a job for $8.25/hour for a construction company that was responsible for assembling a conveyor belt for a local factory. 

The hours were great and the people were pretty good to work with, but the frame that we were constructing was twenty to thirty feet high in some places.  Guess who had to climb up and walk the steel beams to line up the bolts?  The reason I could do that job was because I grew up climbing trees in the woods.  This is what I mean by taking the difficult job.  Sometime you need to take a difficult job because few people want to do it.  But the difficult jobs can sometime be the most rewarding.

At the end of the summer, the construction company offered me a job if I wanted to continue working for them rather than going back to college. I didn't take the job, but this opportunity was only presented to me because I was willing to take this difficult job.  Don’t wait for the perfect job to come your way. It’s not going to come anytime soon, perhaps ten years.  The companies that have difficult jobs are always hiring.  I have several factories and farms related jobs in the area that anyone could get a job at within one day.  Don’t spend all summer looking for a job, when you could have been working all summer. 

2. Use Relationships

When you go to grad parties and weddings this summer, don’t just go for the food and fun, but use them to look for opportunities to ask your friends and relatives for summer jobs openings.  Perhaps some of them are looking for summer help at their businesses, but didn’t want to post a job to the public and now that you mention you are available they may be willing to create an opening for you because of the relationship with you or your parents that reduces their risk of hiring someone. 

When I was a young adult, almost everyone got jobs this way.  If you don’t have a grad party coming up or you forgot to ask your relatives when you attended a grad party, then pick up the phone and call your friends and relatives. Start the conversation with reminding them of the party that they just saw them at and how good they looked since you last saw them.  Then ask them if they know of anyone looking for summer help. 

3. Be Persistent

When I say this to young people today, they don’t seem to understand what I’m saying.  I don’t mean to continue to apply for thousands of jobs until one day someone hires you.  That is not the persistence that I’m talking about.  Back in the day when I was looking for a summer jobs in high school and college, I learned this important lesson. 

Each summer I used to make a list of about 10 businesses that I thought would be a good summer job for me, based my by criteria of how many hours I would be able to work and how much money I needed to make by the end of the summer for the next year of school.  When applying for the jobs I would try to get a name or a phone number of the manager.  Then after waiting a few days I would begin calling them and asking for the manager.  They would usually tell me that they have not had the chance to look over the applications yet, in which I would remind them that I am every interested. 

I would then persist in calling them back every few days, asking for them by name until they began to remember by name.  At this point, I have gain name recognition and a leg up on every other application.  Consider these phone conversations as part of the applicant process.  They show that you are willing to work hard to get the task done and that you have good communication skills which are very useful in helping customers. Of course you need to remain honest and polite, even if they say no because you may need to call the back next year.

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It’s official, the birth certificate that the White House released on April 27th has been ruled a fake my many experts.  

The liberal media has done an excellent job at discrediting and lying about Obama’s birth certificate, but Dr. Jerome Corsi’s new book, “Where's the Birth Certificate?” has quickly become a best seller because it contains undeniable evidence that Obama is not eligible to serve.

In an interview, Dr. Jerome Corsi said

“If people read my book, Barack Obama’s Presidency will not survive. … and the White House committed a criminal act in producing a fake birth certificate just to keep his Presidency alive.”

After several years and millions of dollars in legal fees that the White House has spent to protect the release Obama's birth certificate, the growing public skepticism forced the White House to respond.  

Mr. Trump also played a key role in recent weeks repeatedly bringing up the issue in interview after interview, which forced the White House to release a birth certificate, as Obama was plummeting in the polls with as much as 30% of the public no longer believing he was born in the U.S.

Even the Hawaii government to this day says that the official birth certificate is locked away in a safe place, which contradicts the White House claim that they have released a copy of the official birth certificate.

Here is a recent interview with Dr. Jerome Corsi about the proof contained in his new book.  

Here is a document expert showing how the birth certificate is a complete fake;

This issue it's over and Obama is worse off now that the White House has released a fake birth certificate in order to fool the public with the full cooperation of the media to try and discredit the questioners and bury the issue.

Yet not one document expert has been able to explain the clear layers within the fake document that has been released by the White House. This is sure to lead to many legal cases for years to come as the truth remains hidden and the White House continues to lie.

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With food inflation approaching new highs around the world, millions and perhaps soon billion will be planting their own gardens.

According to a recent article more than a third of adults in Britain claim that they will grow the majority of all the vegetables and fruit they need this season.

I usually don’t begin planting this early, but over the years as my gardening knowledge has increased, my planting season has also increased.  Yesterday I planted by salad garden.

This year, I created a garden schedule to help me manage my planting and harvesting which has become too complicated to remember.  April 10th is the earliest that I have ever planted up here in central MN. 

My salad garden consists of foods like lettuce, onions, radishes, peas, carets, kohlrabi and spinach, most of which like to grow in the cooler weather, so I should be able to get away with this unless we have a late freeze.

With a growing family, twelve percent food inflation last year it’s time to start planting earlier. My garden schedule this year stretches 22 week, with some food getting replanted up to four times (like lettuce). 

I would also like to use the new acre of land I purchased a few months ago to double my food production.  A few years ago, I ran the numbers and realized that my garden at that time was worth about $3300 per years at $27 per hour.

These figures give me two ways to improve, I can increase the amount I produce and I can increase my efficiency by lowering the time I spend in the process.

Food Trends

The increase in food prices and the lengthening recession have created an increase in local farmers markets and community garden projects all around Central MN.  This year, we even have a new food co-op that just started up in my neighborhood. 

It will be interesting to see how the food co-op competes with local grocery stores that get most of their food from distant food producers.

Can small local food producers compete with distance large food producers?  Rising gas prices drive up both the cost to produce and to transport food, taking away the advantage of the efficiencies of larger food producers.  As gas prices increase, the closer your food grows to you the cheaper it becomes.

The high unemployment rate also adds to the equation, as idol labor begins to realize they can grow and sell food in their local community without filling out a job application.  And if they become proficient at it, $27 per hour is good money in Central MN.

Then add in the rich soil that we have in Central MN, and I expect nothing less than a gardening frenzy to sweep across the state – just as I predicted years ago. Unlike many other states, we could grow food anywhere even along the highways and roadways, and when the phony economy comes crashing down, we probably will.

A Free Market Solution

By the way, this is an example of the free market economy in response to the damage that Obama has done by intervention and spending. This is the free markets response to the governments solution to steal money from people through inflation. The free market is our friend because it puts money in our pocket. The liberal politicians that have taken control of much of the economy under the disguise of social welfare economics are not our friends because they take money out of the economy and leave everyone poorer.

The ability to freely redirect labor and capital to increase production of food to lower its cost can only be achieved with a free market driven economy.  Other nations that do have not these freedoms, because there government has complete control of food production or transportation, will not be as lucky.  They will suffer a much greater loss of wealth because of the food inflation that has just begun.  

This is a clear example of how the government intervention has again failed, causing food inflation as they continue to print money and spend more than we have.  The free market (what's left of it) is the solution. It always has been and it always will. 

The negative consequences of liberalism and its central planned economy are always greater than the consequence of the free market. Yet somehow we continue to elect people that believe in an economic strategy that is doomed to fail. 

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