Looming Depression?

Kevin McCullough, in an article dated September 5, 2010, noted that this week President Obama claimed that the nation saw job growth of 67,000 jobs in August. Even if this number was real it would be a pitifully tiny percent of the 14,885,000 who are both on unemployment (1 in 10 Americans) as well as those 23,768,000 who are underemployed (working but not earning enough for basic needs - 1 in 5 families).

The bigger problem for the president however is that the number is not real. The fact is the nation saw 114,000 people added to the unemployment lines in August and the net jobs lost for the month sat at 54,000. In all the "summer of recovery"--as both President Obama and Vice President Biden pronounced it--saw 238,000 more jobs disappear. Telling the nation that his plans have taken the economy in the right direction, and implying that the nation is seeing a recovery in the area of employment is either willfully dishonest, or painfully, even treacherously naive. At the rate of this "recovery" another 317,333 workers could be sitting on the sidelines before the end of the year.

Additionally we are now on track to see the single largest collection of tax increases ever proposed take the Obama economy even further into the tank. In less than 120 days President Obama's plan to add a collective 18.6% to the federal tax burden will continue the economic downward spiral into record breaking depression-era territory. And remember he repeatedly said--on the campaign trail--that he should be elected expressly to prevent the nation's economy from complete deterioration.

Instead unemployment that was growing in the transition from Bush to Obama has exploded to double what it was under Bush. Even worse this means that while 14,885,000 Americans are claiming unemployment assistance, some 23,768,000 families are presently struggling through work that they have but are unable to meet their basic needs.

And about the time we are belting out Auld Lang Syne this holiday season, President Obama will raise all five income levels of tax categories between 3-5%.

Ironically the President will be raising the rate on the category that is home to seventy-five percent of all small businesses in America by the largest increase.

None of this takes into effect the additional costs that will be incurred by taxpayers when the full implementation of President Obama's control of one-sixth of the economy through the manipulation of how we receive health care benefits kicks in. And not that it has great likelihood of passing this year, but if by some miracle it did, the Obama tax penalties that would be incurred by every citizen in the nation under the proposed "Cap & Trade" legislation would add even greater misery to the growing pile.

All of these pending tax increases will be put into effect against well more than 95% of American tax-payers.

For McCullough, all of this suggests that unless the nation changes course, the nation will experience the "Obama depression." None of us has any way of knowing whether this result occur, of course.

Obama and Placebo Economics

Hugh Hewitt, in his August 27, 2010 article, called the Obama approach to economics "placebo economics." His point is that his plan was never intended to cause a cure for the economic ills of the country so much as to rick Americans into feeling like the country was past the fallout of the housing bubble and the panic. This feeling would lead investors to resume their pattern of investment, risk, and return that fuels democratic capitalism. It would be the equivalent of a "sugar high" fueled by $850 billion in "stimulus" as well as the massive hikes in baseline spending from 2007 forward was supposed to trigger real economic growth. Therefore, it did not matter that census jobs and spikes in federal and state employment are not the sort of jobs that raise real national GDP. Basically, such placebo economics was supposed to induce recovery through a sort of mass psychological pumping up. It did not work. It never could have worked. People do not invest for sentimental reasons. They invest and take risks in order to make real economic advances. Investors are looking at the massive tax hikes that the nation will experience in 2011 and the weight of "Obamacare" in the near future. Cap and Tax, the program that Obama wants to deal with supposed human-caused global warming, is a further weight.

Sobering thought on the two political parties and spending

When Lyndon Johnson was elected into office in 1964, federal spending was $118 billion. When he left office in 1968, federal spending was $178 billion, a 66 percent increase. Worse than the massive increase in federal spending, his administration and Democratically controlled Congress saddled us with two programs that have helped fuel today's fiscal disaster -- Medicare and Medicaid.


he 2000 election of George W. Bush as president gave Republicans what the Democrats have now, total control of the legislative and executive branches of government. When Bush came to office, federal spending was $1.788 trillion. When he left office, federal spending was $2.982 trillion. That is a 60 percent increase in federal spending, although it took twice the time as it did Johnson.

Of course, since Bush, government spending has been placed on steroids. In fact, the amount of deficit federal spending is already more than it was under Bush.

Mosque Near Ground Zero, August 2010

The public debate concerning building a mosque near ground zero seems to have one "side," namely, the side that sees nothing wrong with building the mosque as proposed, unwilling to listen to the concerns of their opponents. Supporters use the classic "straw man" argument, claiming that their opponents are bigots regarding Islam, are against the freedom of these people to use private property as they wish, and do not really accept the constitutional protections for freedom of religion. The top executive of the United Methodist Commission and Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns, Rev. Stephen J. Sidorick, Jr., takes this approach. This "side" of the debate, in other words, refuses to listen to their opponents, who make it clear that the objection is not to all mosques, that Muslims already have places of worship close to ground zero, and that Muslims have great freedoms in the USA to worship as they choose. 


As a United Methodist pastor, I must also deal with the position of the my denomination. The book of Resolutions calls for "better relationships between Christians and Muslims on the basis of informed understanding, critical appreciation, and balanced perspective of one another's beliefs." Another resolution calls for United Methodists to denounce discrimination against Muslims and "counter stereotypical and bigoted statements made against Muslims and Islam, Arabs and Arabic culture." We are called to love your neighbors, of course, and this includes our Islamic neighbors. 


What could possibly motivate someone to oppose the building of this particular mosque? What I am going to suggest is that opposition may come from an informed understanding of what Islam actually is, rather than what we wish it were. Opposition may come from a true reading of Muslims and Islams, rather than a bigoted and stereotypical one. Opposition may actually come from love, a love willing to say "No." 


For some people who live in the vicinity, the building should have been declared part of the memorial for ground zero, for the wheel of one of the planes that the World Trade Center hit the building. For some, then, the building becomes part of history that should be protected. 


However, much of the opposition comes from a reading of Islam and its objectives. Most of global Islam has not had an "enlightenment" period, in which Christians learned the value of the separation of church and state. Most adherents of Islam Former US Army Lt Gen. William Boykin, in an interview he gave to W. Thomas Smith on August 23, 2010, points out that Islam is not a religion in the sense in which we who live in Western Civilization understand religion. Rather, globally, Islam is a totalitarian way of life with a religious component. His experience in the field is that Islam is a legal, political, and financial system, a dress code, a moral code, and a social structure that differs in every way from what Western Civilization has constructed. He further points out that too many people are unaware of its history and basic tenants. He states that the major objective of Islam is to replace the American constitution with Sharia Law. If we take their history seriously, from the beginning, with Mohammed, who defeated the nomadic tribes in Mecca, they built a mosque at their holiest of sites. The message was one of triumph. Islam has defeated you and reigns over you. They did the same thing at Cordoba in Spain. They did it again in Jerusalem. The message was always one of conquest and victory. For him, then, Islam wants to build a mosque at the site of ground zero to proclaim that Islam reigns supreme. What it will mean to Muslims all over the world is that it will be easier to recruit people to the cause of Jihad against the USA and Western Civilization. For him, the support of pastors and rabbis for this project shows an extraordinary lack of understanding of what Islam is doing. 


Patrick Buchanan, in an article of August 17, 2010, notes that Islam is a rising faith, Islam is a rising faith, the largest on earth, with 1.5 billion adherents. It is a militant faith that believes it will one day encompass all humanity. It holds there is but one God, Allah, that his last and greatest prophet was Muhammad, that Islam, the path of submission, is the path of salvation. It believes that its sacred book, the Koran, should inform the culture, that Sharia should be the basis of civil law.


Buchanan offers this reminder of what happens where Islam becomes the dominate faith. It has been intolerant of rivals, especially Christianity, because it was the faith of the crusaders. He concedes that most Muslims are not of the Osama bin Laden variety, but many are uncompromising in their belief that, once their faith becomes the majority faith in a community or society, Muslims should write the rules and Muslims should make the laws.


Rev. Stephen Bauman, a United Methodist pastor who has worked with Feisel Abdul Rauf, the Immam leading the near ground zero projected Mosque, says he trusts what Rauf says concerning the purpose of the mosque. When I watch the interview in which Rauf says that bin Laden "was born in the USA," due to its policies, I must say that I see a typical Middle East cleric at work, one who wants to Sharia Law imposed on the USA. The matter of trust is a personal one, of course. No, I do not think the man is sincere. He wants to send a message of aid and comfort to the enemies of the USA and Western Civilization.


Those of you who support the building of the mosque, I simply invite you to consider a question. In your heart, do you think that Islam is consistent with pluralism, ecumenism, and a belief in the equality of religious and lifestyle pursuits, from the standpoint of legal right? Are these values it brings with it when it becomes the dominant religion in Africa or Asia? 


Now, I also invite the reader to consider that I have not called those who disagree with me names. I have invited you to consider the possibility that those who disagree with your support for a ground zero mosque being built may have reasonable grounds for doing so, if these reasons are not persuasive to you. Further, if I took the same approach to the argument as do you, who support the near ground zero mosque, I would be accusing you of homophobia and sexism, since Sharia Law discriminates thoroughly against both. My point, of course, is that we need to listen. We need to stop pulling out the bigot and phobia cards, and genuinely listen to what the other person is saying. 

Pondering National Debt August 2010

The CBO report, "Federal Debt and the Risk of a Fiscal Crisis," points out that the national debt, which was 36 percent of the Gross Domestic Product three years ago, is now projected to be 62 percent of GDP at the end of fiscal year 2010-- and rising in future years.

Tracing the history of the national debt back to the beginning of the country, the CBO finds that the national debt did not exceed 50 percent of GDP, even when the country was fighting the Civil War, the First World War or any other war except World War II. Moreover, a graph in the CBO report shows the national debt going down sharply after World War II, as the nation began paying off its wartime when the war was over.

By contrast, our current national debt is still going up and may end up in "unfamiliar territory," according to the CBO, reaching "unsustainable levels." They spell out the economic consequences-- and it is not a pretty picture.

As the Congressional Budget Office puts it, if the national debt continues to grow out of control, a "growing portion of people's savings would go to purchase government debt rather than toward investments in productive capital goods such as factories and computers; that 'crowding out' of investment would lead to lower output and incomes than would otherwise occur."

Just paying the interest on a growing national debt can require higher tax rates, which "would discourage work and saving and further reduce output," according to the CBO.

As Thomas Sowell, in his article on these matters on August 4th noted, it would probably do no good to send Robert Gibbs-- or Barack Obama, for that matter-- a copy of the government's own Congressional Budget Office report. Spending vast sums of money in politically strategic places helps the Obama administration politically, and that is obviously their bottom line.

global warming

Apparently, the EPA, Congressional Black Caucus and White House all think that the threat of "global warming" is the greatest threat we face as a nation. I would differ with the proposition. Domestically, for example, one could make a strong argument that trillion dollar deficits as far as we can project are a far greater threat. Paul Driessen (July 31, 2010) refers to the "threat" that unwed mothers present, and the need to make sure they have the needed support from local organizations in order to avoid the danger. I would add that the threat to all of Western Civilization from the barbarians at the gate, namely, Islamic militarism, is a far greater threat.

Driessen goes on to make a point that I have been struggling to make with some of my friends. Let us assume that human carbon dioxide emissions will cause average global temperatures to rise a few degrees more than they have already since the Little Ice Age ended. The policies proposed to deal with it will harm minorities the most, in contrast to the position of the Black Congressional Caucus.

For another point, and this should be obvious, human activities have not replaced the complex natural forces that drove climate change throughout Earth’s history. I think it arrogant in the extreme to think otherwise. Still further, even if manmade greenhouse gases do contribute to planetary warming, slashing US emissions to zero would bring no benefit, because steadily rising emissions from China, India, Brazil and other rapidly growing economies would almost instantly replace whatever gases we cease emitting. Driessen goes on to point out that fossil fuels power the economic engine that ensures justice and opportunity in America today. Policies that make energy less reliable and affordable reduce business revenues and profits, shrink investment and innovation, imperil economic recovery, and hobble job creation, civil rights, and the pursuit of happiness and the American dream. Whether they take the form of cap-and-trade, carbon taxes, restrictions on drilling and coal mining, or EPA rules under its claim that carbon dioxide “endangers” human health and welfare, anti-energy policies frustrate the natural desire of poor and minority Americans to improve their lives. As he puts it, "We cannot have justice without opportunity, or opportunity without energy. We cannot have justice by sharing scarcity, poverty and skyrocketing energy prices more equally – especially on the basis of erroneous, speculative or manipulated climate science."

After reading this article, I hope the reader can see where the policies that activists propose to deal with global warming (I would include the United Methodist Church as one of those activists) are a far greater threat to human justice than is global warming itself.

Gulf Spill and Global Warming

An article in the New York Times quotes John Amos, president of SkyTruth, an environmental advocacy group that sharply criticized the early, low estimates of the size of the BP leak, noted that no oil had gushed from the well for nearly two weeks. “Oil has a finite life span at the surface,” Mr. Amos said Tuesday, after examining fresh radar images of the slick. “At this point, that oil slick is really starting to dissipate pretty rapidly.”

According to the article, some of the compounds in the oil evaporate, reducing their impact on the environment. Jeffrey W. Short, a former government scientist who studied oil spills and now works for the environmental advocacy group Oceana, said that as much as 40 percent of the oil in the gulf might have simply evaporated once it reached the surface.

An unknown percentage of the oil would have been eaten by bacteria, essentially rendering the compounds harmless and incorporating them into the food chain. But other components of the oil have most likely turned into floating tar balls that could continue to gum up beaches and marshes, and may represent a continuing threat to some sea life. A three-mile by four-mile band of tar balls was discovered off the Louisiana coast on Tuesday.

In a Washington Post article, "the light crude oil is biodegrading quickly," NOAA director Jane Lubchenco said during the response team daily briefing. "We know that a significant amount of the oil has dispersed and been biodegraded by naturally occurring bacteria." Much of the oil appears to have been broken down into tiny, microscopic particles that are being consumed by bacteria. Little or none of the oil is on seafloor, she said, but is instead floating in the gulf waters.

Both articles raise concerns, of course, being the good alarmists that they are. However, these statements should make clear that earth is quite resistant to anything that would destroy parts of it.

Such science should be a lesson for Global Warming activists as well. Not even an unintentioned human-caused oil event in a body of water as large the Gulf is of much concern to "mother nature." It has processes like evaporation and bacteria that take care of it. We think (arrogantly) that we are doing something to a victim that we call earth. Earth is far stronger than that. Earth is stronger than human beings, which should be a "duh," but in the political environment of today, it seems to be in question.