The forces of depression are getting a drop on the new year. The bureau of labor statistics announced today that the US had undergone the biggest job loss in the United States since 1945 in 2008. These days people are expecting bad news, but what the questions that we need to ask is how come no mainstream economist saw this coming? How come we don’t see Keynesians falling all over themselves admitting that their phony theory has little predictive value in the face of the tremendous magnitude of this decline? After all, Keynesians tout the stimulating effect of government deficits. How can it be that after eight years of George Bush, who took this country further into debt that all of his predecessors put together, that we are now facing the worst economic scenario since the Great Depression?
Of course, I know how unseemly it must be for me to be attacking John Maynard Keynes on the eve of President-Elect Obama’s inauguration. The man hasn’t even gotten to power yet, and I’m already faulting the underpinnings of his economic bailout plan. And while I’m attacking Obama, what’s up with appointing lobbyist Willian J Lynn III to be the #2 person in the Department of Defense? I thought Obama was supposed to be cleaning up Washington by keeping lobbyists out of his administration. At least, that’s what Democratic talk-shot host Rhadi Rhodes was shoving down my throat back when I called into her radio show. On that particular day Ms. Rhodes was talking about the cronyism going on in the Wall Street bailout and I called in to showcase that this was another case of where the government had proven very ineffective at performing any regulatory function because the oversight boards are inevitably dominated by the corporations they are supposed to watchdog. She fired back how Obama was going to change all that. “Change I could believe in.”
Well, I don’t mean to run the poor man down, but if he’s made a pledge to keep lobbyists out of his administration, then why break the promise? I’m sure there are plenty of other well qualified non-lobbyists out there who can run the post. And this is the Department of Defense we’re talking about. That’s only the nexus of government and the defense industry which President Eisenhower warned about in his farewell address– a warning that has since gone ignored.
When looked at from a purely Libertarian standpoint, the US Government has three branches, but they aren’t the ones you’re thinking of. Instead of the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial, the US Government has the Banking, Defense, and Welfare branches. The Defense industry expands the empire, while the Welfare branch keeps people appeased in the classic Roman “Bread and Circuses” combination. The Banking branch ensures that the other two branches have all the money that they need in order to function by creating money out of thin air and sending the bill to our future generations.
As I’ve said many a time, this story is not going to end well. No amount of bank created stimulus can keep this impossible situation going. It’s going to collapse, and soon.