Oct
27
Obama on Business
Filed Under American Politics
He hates it, so says Peter Schweizer at Big Government:
Okay, it’s time to finally admit it: Barack Obama hates businessmen. Not just certain businessmen, mind you, but the entire profession.
Obama has demonized just about every business sector in America. Through the 2008 campaign to the present, he has gone after credit card companies, the coal industry, mortgage companies, real estate companies, steelmakers, utilities, drug companies, doctors, oil companies, Wall Street, defense contractors, and health insurance companies, just to name a few. In each case he has dinged them for greed, taking excessive profits, and failing to put people first. His criticisms have not been over minor matters but over their basic core functions, and their values or lack of them.
Obama demonstrates almost complete ignorance about the private sector and it’s no wonder: he has so little experience in it. He has spent his adult life in college, teaching college, and organizing communities. The one private sector job he has held, for a consulting firm in New York, he recounts as a terrible experience. In his memoirs he describes the experience as working for a private business “like a spy behind enemy lines.” He also recounts in his memoirs that the multinational corporations in the Indonesia of his youth were propelling the average worker “into deeper despair.” He likened the presence of corporations in his native Africa to a form of “neocolonialism.” Michelle Obama has beseeched young people, “We left corporate America, which is a lot of what we are asking young people to do. Don’t go into corporate America. You know, become teachers, work for the community, be a social worker, be a nurse….move out of the money-making industry, into the helping industry.”
What Barack Obama seems to be forgetting, is that business and the entrepreneurial spirit is what drove America’s greatness. Of course he’s not really forgetting it, the man who sat at the feet of Jeremiah Wright and William Ayers is going to take issue with the very notion of American greatness, regardless of what drove it.
I’ve just been reading about FDR and his hatred for business, it led to extremely high punitive tax rates, government by federal largesse and a failed battle with unemployment. Oh and FDR’s government launched vituperative attacks on his opponents too. Perhaps Obama is inheriting FDR’s mantle after all.
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7 Responses to “Obama on Business”
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cabbie,
let’s not forget the big one: chamber of commerce.
if it walks and quacks like a duck, . . .
today’s drudge/pravda link talks about how America is eschewing capitalism. This trend is embraced by the far left in this country but not by the middle and the right.
i think that pravda has a clearer view of what is going on here than the moderates in this country do.
credit card companies
These guys have had it pretty easy for years – helped to some extent by changes to the bankruptcy law a few years ago. Americans are used to almost monthly changes to terms and conditions as well as interest rates. This is a business that does not treat its customers well – even to the extent of penalizing “good” customers who pay off their bills every month.
the coal industry
This is an industry with an appalling environmental and human-rights record. It has abused its wealth and power in desperately poor states like West Virginia to pretty much avoid any comeback for its destruction of mountain tops. The idea of clean coal as a “green” source of energy is a complete oxymoron. We now have warnings about eating too much tuna because of high mercury levels in the fish – and that mercury doesn’t come from natural gas power stations it comes from coal-fired power stations.
mortgage companies
real estate companies
I think pretty much everyone realises that this is a business that lost control of itself over the last few years. It gave mortgages to people who should never have had mortgages because, at the end of the day, they sold on the mortgages so they had no worries about whether or not their customers could pay for the mortgages.
defense contractors
Defense contractors have always had their snout in the Federal trough – and while the F22 boondoggle may finally have been cancelled there is still plenty of money floating around. However, Secretary Gates reviews of military spending are long overdue. The idea that defense spending is split three ways makes no sense when one service bears the brunt of the effort.
drug companies
doctors
health insurance companies
The only people who believe that healthcare financing in America is sustainable are those who benefit from the current situation. Direct-to-consumer advertising has done much to increase spending on unnecessary drugs and, frankly, should once again be banned. For example, three-quarters of the people who took Vioxx should actually have been on aspirin – but instead they see the ad and demand it from their physician. Who is he to counter the effectiveness claims in the ad. Health insurance firms have only themselves to blame for any criticism. They appear unwilling to address annual price increases that are multiples of the inflation rate – and the reason is that they take 20% off the top. They have no incentive to keep prices under control because Americans still have no choice but to stick with them if they want health insurance.
Wall Street
The Obama Administration rescued Wall Street to the extent that Goldman-Sachs is announcing record profits (and bonuses). And the American public is mighty pissed about that. They see it as Wall Street being rescued while Main Street goes to pot – and to some extent they are right.
steelmakers
utilities
oil companies
I take it these were thrown into the mix because hey, why not.
ndm has some ndeniable points. Although I once drove across WV and they have plenty of mountains. Lots. Trees and trees for miles. Nothing else, much. I won’t get that day back.
Banks and credit card lenders were able to lend irresponsibly. What is needed is for them to take responsibility if they lend to someone who can’t pay back. Put the defaults on the guy who signed the agreement from the lender’s side. Unfortunately booms are built on easy credit, and the irresponsible borrowers are the first to complain when they can’t get the mortgage or the card. There’s a solution there somewhere without putting the govt into the business. I just can’t quite think of it yet. Personal responsibility?
There’ a leap between there being bad businesses and corporate America being intrinsically evil. If indeed the President does not support corporate America, as Cabbie’s case states, well, that is a problem. It would be nice to know what he really thinks. Fat chance.
ndm
I’m afraid the sheeples defence is a bit lame. People buy Vioxx because they saw the advert? That’s their fault for not doing more research. The same applies tocredit cards and mortgages – you should know whether you can afford it or not (and all come with smallprint that can be read).
I notice the one business exempt from Obama’s attacks are the car manufacturers who get to suck at the tit of the taxpayer time and time again. Why are they different from the above? It couldn’t be something to do with the UAW, big donors to the Democrats could it? Oh yes and of course the failing education system – more Democratic donors in the teachers unions, and no tort reform in the health bills, I wonder why. Oh wait…!
It’s a little dubious to say that Obama’s attacks on American business are motivated solely out of concern for the people when those Democratic bankrollers who are equally screwing the people out of self interest are exempt.
Am I right in remembering that in the case of Vioxx, a trial resulted in the placebo group having NO heart attacks and the Vioxx group having a normal incidence? A black swan event making this drug (which some people swore worked far better than OTC painkillers) into an evil concoction foisted on the innocent by an evil corporation.
You can’t keep capitalism down it even makes money out of dissing capitalism
Thought you guys would like this:
“When the guerrilla film maker brought his new documentary about the evils of capitalism to the Toronto Festival, holders of gold and platinum cards went to the head of the queue”
http://www.clivedavisconfab.com/2009/10/michael-moore-the-visa-card/
Sorry about the shameless plug
Simon
feel free to plug away.