Big government and the damage done

Whether the partially-awakened American people will force the government to reverse course in time remains to be seen. I'm not feeling very hopeful right now.

Steyn on the damage done by way too much government:

What plans have you made for 2023? The average individual attempts to insure against future uncertainty in a relatively small number of ways: You buy a house because that's the surest way to preserve and increase wealth. "Safe as houses," right? But Fannie/Freddie subprime mumbo-jumbo and other government interventions clobbered the housing market. You get an education because that way you'll always have "something to fall back on." But massive government-encouraged expansion of "college" led Americans to run up a trillion dollars' worth of student debt to acquire ever more devalued ersatz sheepskin in worthless pseudo-disciplines. We're not talking about the wilder shores of the stock market – Internet start-ups, South Sea bubbles and tulip mania – but two of the safest, dullest investments a modestly prudent person might make to protect himself against the vicissitudes of an unknown future. And we profoundly damaged both of them in pursuit of fictions.

RTR. John Hinderaker rightly calls it a Ponzi game. Also from Mr. Hinderaker, Obama's scam to deflect blame for the painful (to consumers) rise in gas prices under his  administration:

It is getting hard to keep track of all of the disgraceful things Barack Obama is doing, but we shouldn't overlook his effort to blame high energy prices on "speculators." In fact, the high price of petroleum, which in turn raises the cost of everything else, is due to a combination of market forces and the Obama administration's terrible energy policies. When you have an administration that openly wishes for higher energy costs, it shouldn't be a surprise when prices go up.

But Obama doesn't want to take the blame for the consequences of his policies, so he follows his usual Alinskyite policy--fabricate a villain and demonize him. Here, the villain is a group of nameless "speculators" who supposedly are driving up the price of oil. Obama has now gotten the Department of Justice and other agencies into the act.

Andy McCarthy on that:

As the “Arab Spring” spooks the market, and Obama’s economic, monetary and energy policies increase inflationary pressure, gas prices keep pushing upward, now well over $4/gallon in many places. So, rather than look in the mirror, President Obama has reached again for his dog-eared copy of Rules for Radicals and searched out a culprit to demonize. And the winner is … those bad “traders and speculators,” who, he suggested yesterday, could be “taking advantage of American consumers for their own short-term gains.” [. . .]

There is no need for a task force on gas price gouging. The Federal Trade Commission already is a task force on gas price gouging. As the Congressional Research Service reported in 2007, the FTC has long been responsible for monitoring gas prices. In 2005, the Energy Policy Act tasked the commission to investigate whether gas prices were being “artificially manipulated by reducing refinery capacity or by any other form of market manipulation or price gouging practices.” Following Hurricane Katrina, the gouge-hunting mandate was further enhanced. And the extensive FTC scrutiny is separate and apart from investigative action in most states, which already have gas price-gouging laws.

What the president gave us yesterday was pure theater: Make a show of aggressively investigating a phantom — one that is already scrutinized to a fare thee well — in order to obscure the real problem: the president himself.

RTR.

I'm inclined to agree with this assessment:

Obama will not survive this, no matter how slick talking and toothy grinnin he is. He should be hearing the creaking of the coffin lid right about July. When average Joe is paying $80 a fill-up and he hears about subsidies to South America so they can “drill, baby, drill”, Obama will be chased into the windmill with flaming clubs.

But . . . I wish I were so sure. Because we still have the disgraceful, integrity-free liberal media, doing everything they can to protect their guy from blame. Even when the cost of everything we buy is going up, when our wallets are empty and we can't get from point A to point B without serious planning and sacrifice, public opinion is heavily driven by the media, and they're still grossly biased. They drove the demonization of Bush and continue to prop up their savior. See Media Blamed Bush for Rising Gas Prices, Fail to Blame Obama for Similar Hike in Costs. Shameless.

Many thanks to MichelleMalkin.com for the link.
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