What is happening here?
From the Mid-Eighties until last year, even with an occasional fiscal hiccup, the United States experienced the greatest peacetime economic expansion in the history of the universe. Western nations and other countries also enjoyed the broadest expansion of wealth in history.
According to The Economist, the nation's gains in income and wealth resulted directly in a better standard of living for virtually every segment of American society -- including the poor.
And all this while sustaining our massive international food and monetary foreign aid programs, two wars, ever-expanding social welfare, and the horrific September 11 Islamist terrorist attack that temporarily sent the economy into a tailspin.
But you wouldn't know any of this if you listened to the state-run media for the past eight years. You would think feel the opposite. In fact, you would fearfully clamor for hope, for change, for a new direction for America.
Contrived exploitation
And now, with the Obama administration's statist motor revved up and red-lined, all that prosperity has been frittered away.
Gone. And without just economic cause -- which means other motives are in play.
As Daniel Greenfield noted in a recent article, "In the sixth month of his presidency,"Obama has turned an economic downturn into an economic disaster." Obama has turned an economic downturn into an economic disaster, taking over and trashing entire companies, and driving the nation deep into deficit spending expected to pass 10 trillion dollars."
Ahem. It is no secret that Americans are cutting back on spending. This factor, coupled with rising unemployment, home prices continuing to decline, the upward spike in energy prices, and our nation's wealth evaporating, serve as clear indicators.
Even to the most obtuse amongst us, the reality is that any economic recovery will be slow to develop -- if it develops at all under current management.
What the ... ?
So where has all of our pilfered wealth gotten to, and where will the remainder go? Certainly not into economic recovery -- or "stimulus" if you are a statist -- that is clearly evident for the world to see and is indisputable.
According to the Federal Reserve's recent Flow of Funds report, U.S. household wealth fell in the first quarter by $1.3 trillion, extending the biggest slump"It will be difficult to have any consumer spending without jobs and incomes recovering first." on record, as home and stock prices dropped.
The Fed report indicates that net worth for households and non-profit groups decreased to $50.4 trillion for this year's first quarter from $51.7 trillion in the fourth quarter 2008. Moreover, the economy contracted at a 5.7 percent annual pace in the first quarter.
And we know that since January of this year alone, ill-advised government incursions have caused more than two million private-sector jobs to be eliminated.
What does all this mean? Well, common sense tells us that with private-sector unemployment rising out of control, the economy collapsing, and statist spending out of control, it doesn't bode anything good, short- or long-term.
Christopher Low, chief economist at FTN Financial in New York, noted that "It's going to be very difficult to have any recovery in consumer spending without jobs and incomes recovering first."
Indeed.
Statist engineering
To the Democrat Party, Obama, and the Democrat Congress, life is rich, power is good and every day is an ostentatious promenade. They relish the galas, the glitter, jetting to and fro, and the camera lens. Reality, however, is very much different for the rest of us.
We are witnessing a jaw-dropping lack of accountability for statist political hegemony"If it's only about power, you lose." -- Dick Armey stemming from a flurry of contrived crises, outright lies, poorly-conceived strategies, and economic blundering. One must then wonder if it all arises from arrogance or incompetence.
Dick Armey, former House Republican Majority Leader, is a principled man and was instrumental in the remarkable 1994 Congressional Contract with America. Mr. Armey once stated that "A legislative entrepreneur is a person who has a set of principles and is willing to take risks on its behalf."
He also firmly believes: "If it's only about power, you lose."
To contrast, Obama's entire raison d'etre is the irreversible entrenchment of national socialism at the expense of America's wealth, constitutional rights, and future.