Turn On A Dime

Yesterday, before the football games came on, of course, the were the usual talking heads on TV, commiserating about how low our country has come. Foreign relations are a disaster. The Middle East is on fire. But most of all the economy is plunging ever deeper into the porcelain facility.

The discussion centered around the American decline being inevitable, and the near impossibility that America will ever again be the financial and industrial powerhouse that it once was. Needless to say, these people are out of their ever-loving minds.

So, where are we and why are we here? Toward the end of the Bush 43 administration, the economy started to lag. It does that periodically as a natural part of economic adjustments. 

Then President Obama was elected promising to restore the economy. He proceeded to do exactly all of the wrong things. First, he went on an absolutely insane government spending binge, that being his Keynesian nature. Much was lost in Solyndra type bankruptcies. Much was given to car companies that should have been allowed to let the free market and the courts resolve their problems. All of this leaves our country with an 18 trillion dollar debt.

Then he shoved through a bollixed up government takeover of the health care industry that still is not working properly and is causing accelerating health care costs. The increasing costs and the reams of regulations have so scared employers that they are using fewer full time employees and more part time. Many small businesses have just gone under because of the financial pressure.

Also, the Presidents cadre of czars and agencies have been cranking out regulations affecting businesses at an overwhelming rate. CEOs did what they had to do. They laid off workers and shut down marginal operations to keep profitable.

To provide cover for bad economic policy, the FED started cutting interest rates until they could cut no more. This buoyed up the stock market and put a nice pretty lipstick on a pig of an economy.

So, that is how and why. The big question is, can it turn around. Contrary to the nay sayers. it can turn on a dime. A new administration with a better sense of what drives America financially and understands American business is necessary. A shutdown of Obamacare and a restoration of a sensible free market approach is required. A long trip out into the weeds of the huge volumes of anti-business regulations this administration has created and cutting those back is mandatory.

American corporate taxes are the highest in the industrial world. We cannot be competitive under that condition. Corporate taxes must be lowered. Stop the practice of double taxing money made abroad so corporations can bring that money back here and grow their American operations.

This is all basic stuff. Much more can be done to bring production home to America rather than shipping our jobs abroad. With the right President and Congress, it can be done.