Fear Is the Mind Killer

It's quite instructive to see how President Obama is using fear to demand passage of the porkfest "stimulus" package that will not deliver stimulus in a timely fashion. It isn't even a focused effort. Obama is using a shotgun approach and hoping that something hits that he can hang his hat on to show that this mess has done something to stimulate the economy, even though it is a government stimulus package.

This is so fundamentally different than what FDR did during the Great Depression, when Roosevelt realistically portrayed the economy and focused on the positives to induce spending and growth and economic development. Roosevelt sought to avoid panic, while Obama is describing the situation as catastrophic when it is not the case.

Obama is going in the completely opposite direction by warning of far more catastrophic damage to the economy if the stimulus and TARP 2, the wrath of TARP, doesn't come to pass.

Failing to act may lead to a catastrophe. So, what will acting in a grossly irresponsible and fiscally harmful manner do?

It will make it worse. That's what the CBO says.

Yet, we're supposed to believe that the recession will get worse unless we not only go through with porkfest 2009, but TARP 2, the wrath of TARP, and a player to be named later.

That's at least $2 trillion in spending that Obama wants to unleash without one care what it does to the economy. His only support for such massive spending is the fear of doing nothing, even though experts believe that this recession will end later this year even without any stimulus package.

We have examples of what massive government spending and irresponsible policy have wrought. It's called Japan from the 1980s onwards. They've had a crummy economy for years on end because the government stuck its piehole where it didn't belong, and the private sector suffered horribly for it. Of course, Obama claims that the Japanese government failed in its stimulus package because it didn't sufficiently spend enough money. By that reasoning, even the amounts Obama is talking about aren't going to be enough, and he will demand more.

That's why we're hearing Obama and Treasury Secretary Geithner talk about the need for yet another TARP bailout package, which may cost another $1 trillion.

We're going to repeat that same mistake, except Obama hopes that his presence will change things. I've reported on such nonsense before - it's what socialists and Marxists say every time they get their hands on the engines of economy. They will change things and make them right, and all they succeed in doing is destroying economies and causing untold misery.

It's what happened in Zimbabwe. It's what is happening in Venezuela and a whole laundry list of countries around the world who suffered under the socialist delusions that this time - with the right people in charge - socialism will prevail.

Obama's politics and those of the Democrats are expanding government like never before and it undermines the market system and your liberty and freedoms. It puts the federal government in greater control over the economy in ways never before envisioned by the Founding Fathers, and in ways that even FDR would never have contemplated.

UPDATE:
And the Senate Democrats, plus Republicans Collins, Snowe, and Specter, have now gone and thrown its lot in with the trillion dollar porkfest. The final vote was 61-37 approving this nonsense. It's no wonder that the markets are tanking.

Not only did Tim Geithner's little talk about TARP 2 sound the wrong message, but the markets reacted in a bad way.

The markets had been looking for an outcome because they want certainty. They've gotten it. The markets will certainly continue trending down because the porkfest will suck the life out of the private sector.

UPDATE:
Fear is the economy killer. At no time in the past 60 years has the government solution to a recession been a multitrillion dollar plan that is unaffordable and pork-laden. Yet, the Democrats continue pushing the meme that this is the worst crisis in history, and can top the Great Depression unless immediate action is taken.

The statistics tell a different tale.