Murray Sabrin's Blog

You have to admire Barack Obama's rhetorical skills and self confidence.  Even the president's critics give him high marks for being an outstanding communicator.   The mainstream media (MSM) meanwhile have been effusive about President Obama's first month in office, and have become shameless cheerleaders of his "vision" for America. 

Mainstream commentators are ecstatic that an "activist" president who has a "progressive" agenda for America is in the White House making "bold" proposals to create jobs, tackle global climate change, and spend hundreds of billions more on education, health care and energy.  In addition, the MSM are giddy over Obama's plan to raise taxes on upper income individuals and families, and businesses and increase regulations to rein in the "greed" of "irresponsible" business executives.   But like a street hustler who knows how to conduct a good con, Obama's words are meant to soothe the gullible masses into thinking that another great leap forward of statism will create a Kingdom of God on Earth. 

The stock market has crashed, the nation's major banks have imploded, the housing market is in a depression, foreclosures are accelerating, personal and business bankruptcies are rising, the real unemployment rate is in double digits, the federal budget deficit may top $2 trillion this year, the Federal Reserve is creating money at an unprecedented rate, and federal spending is skyrocketing to "stimulate" the economy.   In short, the economy is in the tank. 

Left wingers and other sorted big government advocates typically blame "greed,"  "deregulation," and "capitalism" for the financial meltdown and the deep recession we are in.  Not so fast, according to Thomas E. Woods, Jr., in Meltdown:  A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse.

Two of the most prominent athletes in America have made big news. Michael Phelps, eight time Olympic gold medalist, was pictured taking a marijuana bong in South Carolina, while New York Yankees superstar Alex Rodriguez did admit he took a performance enhancement substance after his name was leaked revealing he failed a drug test when he was a member of the Texas Rangers from 2001-2003.   They both have been excoriated in the press for their “misbehavior.”

In New Jersey meanwhile, Assemblymen Herb Conway, Jr., a physician, and Louis Greenwald introduced A-3079.  The bill mandates that fluoride be added to all public water systems. It passed the first hurdle, when by a vote of 10-0 with one abstention it was released by the Assembly Health and Senior Services Committee and then sent to the Assembly Appropriations Committee for further consideration.   Also in New Jersey, the state mandates more childhood vaccines than any other state, and according to the New Jersey Coalition for Vaccination Choice, “New Jersey is the first jurisdiction anywhere in the world to make flu shots and meningococcal shots compulsory” for preschool kids and sixth graders, respectively. 

Last week, former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie officially announced he will seek the GOP gubernatorial nomination.  The entrance of Christie in the race, who is leading Governor Jon Corzine in the latest Quinnipiac pool, has excited Republican leaders and ant-Corzine voters yearning for a change in the governor's office. 

Chris Christie is this year's Establishment candidate, which means it is his race to lose.  GOP county chairs are lining up behind Christie, guaranteeing him the coveted "line" in virtually all the counties.  In addition, the GOP legislative leadership and scores of local officials are rallying behind Christie.  The question that remains to be answered: Is Christie's nomination all but assured? 

The 1936 song, Pennies from Heaven, has been classic popular song for nearly 75 years.  Three years earlier, at the beginning of FDR's first administration, a "mega pot of pennies" began to flow from Washington DC in an attempt to lift the US economy out of the worst economic downturn in American history.  The Hoover-FDR New Deal effectively ended the Founding Father's vision of a limited government republic.  Some of the Founders, especially Alexander Hamilton, argued that a muscular central government was necessary to build a prosperous country.  In reality, Hamilton wanted to use the federal government to help his "cronies" become rich at the expense of the public, making him one of the founders of crony capitalism.  

For more than 200 years the Hamiltonians in and out of the federal government have supported a strong central state.  Supporting them were influential opinion molders in society-- academics, editorial writers, pundits and business leaders. This powerful coalition of Hamiltonians transformed America and in doing so have been fleecing the people to support the big government agenda of the politically connected.  Big government was sold to the masses on many occasions as reining in the "greed" of the railroad owners, the captains of industry and other so-called malefactors of the public trust.  During the Progressive Era, according to economist and historian Murray Rothbard, was when the coalition of political and financial elites cemented their vision of a "new" America on the masses. 

Congress is debating President Obama's $825 billion stimulus package to generate millions of jobs, fix the nation's crumbling infrastructure, make buildings more energy efficient, provide aid to states and cities, halt global warming, and in the final analysis create a Kingdom of God on earth.

However, Team Obama, comprised of some of the greatest minds in economics and finance, has failed to propose the ultimate fiscal stimulus package that would create very good paying jobs and pump billions into the inner cities and rural America, boost the auto industry and dozens of other retail sectors, and do so immediately without the lag time of conventional government spending.

Getty Images Photo

I voted for George Bush in 2000 primarily because he claimed America should have a "humble" foreign policy.  In the debates with Al Gore he spoke about America being an example to the rest of the world rather than being a great power that would impose its values on other peoples.  Also, during the campaign George Bush sounded as good as Ronald Reagan on the need to reduce the size and scope of the federal government.

When we are attacked on September 11, 2001 and it soon became clear who was responsible for the hijacking of the planes that crashed into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, Americans rallied behind President Bush to go after Bin Laden and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.  However, by 2002 the Bush administration already was deviating from the 2000 campaign rhetoric of limited government.  And it got worse for the American people in 2003 and 2004.  The Bush invasion of Iraq, a country that was not a threat to the American people, was the last straw for limited government Republicans.  Suffice it to say, by the time President Bush was seeking reelection against John Kerry in 2004, his neoconservative policies were anathema to Republicans like me who could not vote for him and support his big government agenda. 

On Tuesday Governor Jon Corzine delivered a somber State of the State address to a joint session of the legislature.  Interrupted several times by polite applause, Governor Corzine outlined his vision for New Jersey: "From each according to his ability to each according to his needs."  Clearly, the governor did not use those exact words, but that is the essence of his "vision" for the people of New Jersey.  If those words sound familiar, they should be:  They are the foundation of Karl Marx's vision for a collectivist society.

Governor Corzine is not alone in embracing the collectivist principles of Karl Marx.  Individuals across the political spectrum embrace (unknowingly?) the values and principles of Marxism, a phenomenon that was predicted by six-time Socialist Party presidential candidate Norman Thomas:   "The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism.  But, under the name of 'liberalism', they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened."  Thus, since the ascendancy of FDR to the presidency in 1933, America has been transformed from a relatively free society to a (fascist) collectivized economy, a process that was accelerated under George Bush and will take another great leap under the Obama administration.

Last week former U.S. attorney Chris Christie announced he will seek the Republican nomination for governor.  Christie becomes the fourth GOP candidate who wants to knock off Gov. Jon Corzine in the November election.   Christie's long awaited entry into the race caused New Jersey's GOP bosses and others to go gaga, because they will have a candidate who will be their meal ticket during both the primary and general election, if he successfully disposes of Levine, Lonegan and Merkt and in the June face-off. 

Chris Christie is in many ways this year's Anne Estabrook, the wealthy businesswomen who sought the GOP U.S. Senate nomination in 2008 and was self-financing her campaign, a bonanza for the political consultants who need a "deep pocket" candidate or one who could raise millions from the political establishment.  Mrs. Estabrook had hired the GOP establishment's favorite operatives to run her bid to unseat Frank Lautenberg.  When she dropped out of the race last March, the political establishment, i.e., the consultants and operatives, were left without a meal ticket and got Andy Unanue to hold a place in the primary until the party bosses could find an acceptable candidate who would hire the same team that was running Mrs. Estabrook's campaign.  As the deadline was drawing near to replace Unanue, New Jersey state GOP chairman Tom Wilson literally begged former congressman and 1996 GOP U.S. Senate nominee Dick Zimmer to replace Unanue in early April.  Zimmer agreed to replace Unanue stating that he is jumping in because he said he wanted to make a "difference."  Zimmer was crushed by Frank Lautenberg in November after running one of the most invisible statewide campaigns in American political history

Yesterday President-elect Barack Obama outlined his American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan in a speech at George Mason University.  Obama said we need to take "dramatic action" ASAP.  He asserted that if nothing is done, "this recession could linger for years."  On the contrary, Obama's spending plan guarantees that the economy will not recover because the federal government will spend additional trillions of dollars that must be borrowed to finance one trillion dollar annual deficits for many years.

The United States economy is in a widespread correction, known as a recession or depression, depending on your point of view.  This correction is occurring because interest rates were driven down to levels by the Federal Reserve igniting an orgy of speculation in real estate, especially housing, where easy credit sparked a massive buying spree by marginal (subprime) buyers, among others.  The housing bubble is unwinding, which means that housing prices are falling to find their equilibrium level, and the sooner this process is completed, the sooner the economy will recover.