Sunday, November 11, 2012

How to Rightfully Blame Obama

At the risk of sounding like a full throttle Obama endorser (which I am not), I feel compelled to distill some truth from the nonsense that I often hear repeated. As we have considerable difficult decisions, and perhaps even more difficult consequences ahead, I thought it was a good time to make a decision tree.

You see, we have a country with complicated problems. That challenge is made harder by the fact that complicated solutions have been put forward to help solve these problems, followed by oversimplified arguments decrying those complicated solutions, all set amongst a populace who barely understands any of it.

For those who are quick to blame everything from the wind direction to the Honey Boo Boo phenomenon on Obama, I present the following helpful guide. It's poster sized so you can mount it on your wall:



This is not absolution of wrongdoing!

I am not suggesting that it is "correct" to do whatever Bernanke and Geithner tell you to do, I'm suggesting that it's no different from what McCain, Romney, Bush I, Bush II or any mainstream Republican would've done. The oft repeated criticism of Obama is that his economic policies are far left or even socialist in nature.

This is simply not true.

The truth is, our economic woes were caused by a reckless, unchecked investment banking industry which cultivated the problem through the Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush administrations. Presidents act on the advice of their council of economic advisers, Treasury Secretary and Fed Chairman. Those are the people who decide when we need to be alarmed, and when they give dire warnings, Presidents of both parties follow consistently.

Obama's stimulus was not the root of the problem, and you can bet your ass that any other President with the exception of Ron Paul would have printed every single dollar that Obama printed. So if you're whole political paradigm is totally based on blaming Obama, you're not being honest with yourself.

A broad view is required in order to understand what went wrong, and if you don't like the remedy that Obama has put forth so far, CONGRATULATIONS! YOU'RE PAYING ATTENTION!

But guess what?!?! Not even Obama likes the solution Obama put forward! That's the nature of a crisis! If it had a clear, indisputable, absolutely bullet-proof solution, it wouldn't be a crisis would it? You think Bush liked TARP?

You think anybody likes any of this?

Be a savvy consumer of information. Simplifying the problem by heaving it all on Obama prevents us from having the kind of national conversation we need to be having. That conversation is not about parties, personalities or conviction. It's not about birth certificates and Big Bird.

It's about having an economic system that works for us instead of the other way around.