Stacking the Deck
“Nothing happens until something is sold or traded” is a phrase often used when talking about growing a business. It can also be applied to our economy. If you want to create jobs, increase your income, and help business grow, something has to be sold or traded.
Can this happen if the federal government is controlling the selling prices of goods and services, provides favored loan status to companies that support them personally, or rig trades for the same reasons? People KNOW this is wrong.
Who would make such unfair decisions?
Politicians who make decisions like this do this because there is something in it for them. It makes playing by the rules impossible for us that try to work honestly and fairly for our customers and our wages.
Solyndra, a solar energy company, was chosen to receive a $535 million loan, but the government did not look to see if they could repay that loan. A few short months after a Presidential visit of support, they went out of business. You and I can’t get a car loan or small business loan without proof that we can pay back the loan. Why was it different for Solyndra? Because this loan created advantage for politicians seeking votes and money.[1] Whose money was lost? It was OUR money.
These same “favors” from government also created the housing market crash when mortgage loans were made to people who typically would not qualify for home loans. Banks knew this was bad business and bad for the homeowners. Even the politicians knew this was wrong but the banks were forced by law to make those loans.[2]
Politicians from both parties received votes from those new homeowners and we all are paying the price for this while those politicians still have their jobs.
Was it always this way?
The Constitution and the structure of our government, with its balance of powers were designed to make it very difficult for our government to do these things. In fact, it was the British Empire creating favors and select advantages for some British businesses that caused the American Revolution. The King and Parliament wanted to control the American Colonies this way. Is this any different from the way the current administration provided a half-billion dollars in loans to Solyndra?
George Washington and his army, along with the authors of the Constitution, knew this had to be stopped in America to create economic freedom. They fought and died for this freedom.
According to the President, the growth engine of America is small businesses. Over a 15 year period, over 60% of all new jobs were created by small business.[3] However, money to grow small businesses and expand innovation is not “free-flowing” to them in the same way money flows to large companies. Loans for large companies give financial advantages and competitive advantages to the biggest and “chosen” companies. Simply following the President statements and logic leads us to the conclusion that job creation will be limited. Money can’t get to those businesses that create the most jobs.
What is responsible for this, and is change possible?
Washington Inc. is made up of all the politically privileged in the White House and its Administration, in Congress, in business, in labor unions, in education, and in the media. Washington Inc. is nothing more than those who are in power that are willing to compromise and even surrender our founding principles of an economic system of trade in which all trading partners believe they receive equal or greater value in exchange for what they give up, true Capitalism.
When we see private sector jobs shrinking and see government jobs growing, a phrase from the movie Apollo Thirteen comes to mind…”Houston, we have a problem!”
If change was not possible, we would all be riding horses not flying in planes; if change were not transformative, Apple would only be a fruit.
The time for lasting change and transformation for America is in the 2012 election. We need to vote out the politicians who call us “ordinary people” who “don’t understand.” We DO understand that America was founded to give us all a fair chance to trade and prosper without government interference.
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Resources
1 http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/obama-fundraiser-pushed-solyndra-deal-inside/story?id=14691618
http://blog.heritage.org/2011/11/03/white-house-subpoenaed-stimulus-loans-under-investigation/
2 Community Reinvestment Act – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Reinvestment_Act
