Fareed Zakaria has a show on CNN called “GPS”, and each week he does a segment called “What in the world?”. On November 17, 2013, this segment was about “How to ruin an economy”. Fareed went through the following checklist of policies that will ruin a nation’s economy:
- Nationalize businesses
- Create hyperinflation
- Induce a currency crisis
- Subsidize, subsidize, subsidize
- Create a dictatorship
The segment was actually about Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez and his successor. But the parallels with Obama’s policies are undeniable and it’s possible CNN was using the segment as subtle criticism of Obama’s failing policies. In the past, the socialist policies of Hugo Chavez were held in high regard by CNN and other left leaning networks. So on the surface, this criticism of Venezuelan socialism seems like an ideological shift, but it’s just another example of media hypocrisy.
Regarding Obama the dictator, it’s a historical fact that dictatorial regimes can only take power when there’s support from financial elites. Propagandists on the left say big government is good and big business is bad. Propagandists on the right say the opposite, i.e., big business is good and big government is bad. But history proves that dictatorial regimes are almost always the result of a public-private partnership involving big government and big business.
The 2014 budget is an example of the same tyranny faced by pre-revolutionary colonists, i.e., taxation without representation. The following text and next paragraph are from an article in USA TODAY: The nearly 1,600-page spending bill includes all 12 of the individual annual spending bills packaged into a $1.012 trillion “omnibus” spending bill. The bill will have gone from unveiling to law in just six days, while the normal appropriations process is structured to take months and allow for more lawmaker input.
Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., holding up the thick bill on the House floor, criticized the House for voting on a bill “that nobody has read.” McGovern cited a concern held by lawmakers in both parties that the details of the omnibus are likely to trickle out after the bill has become law. ”I’m willing to bet in a week or so we’re going to read an article about something being in the bill that nobody knew about,”. Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots, characterized the bill as a “monstrosity.” She said ”while Americans suffer the consequences of Obamacare, Congress is trying to rush through another massive bill before reading it,”
If representatives aren’t reading spending bills, there’s no way they can be representing the interests of their constituents, which means there is no representation for taxation.