capitalism is not bad

I was watching Stossel this week which I recommend to everyone. It airs Thursday night at 9 PM Eastern on the Fox Business Channel. The theme of John Stossel’s show this week was Hollywood and their attack on capitalism. It was the topic this week because of the Academy Awards this weekend, but it was interesting to me because of a book I am currently reading, Atlas Shrugged. Ironically Stossel spoke about the book at the end of the show. Although the book was written in 1957 it has gotten a great deal of publicity recently because a movie based off the book is coming out in April. I have always wanted to read the book and went to a used bookstore to find a copy recently. Although I have only read about 200 of the over 1,000 pages I already  recommend it. Below is the movie trailer.

The book depicts a world where government bureaucracies  hinder business competition and there is little optimism from individuals. Intellectuals think that businesses concentrate too much on profit and that society has suffered from this. A few individuals disagree with this notion and the book is about their battle to do what they believe is right.

Stossel did an excellent job showing clips of multiple movies depicting the wrongs of capitalism and painting it as a problem. One movie which recently did this was Avatar. In the film an evil company wants to destroy a planet so that it can profit off a precious material which is found there. I will admit that I enjoyed Avatar. Viewing it in 3D was incredible but the story was certainly anti-capitalist.

Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez & Oliver Stone

Another example is last year’s  Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps which is the sequel to the 1987 film Wall Street, both of which were directed by Oliver Stone.  In the second movie Michael Douglas’ character says, “Someone reminded me I once said ‘Greed is good’.  Now it seems it’s legal.” I don’t know if it is important to embrace the new found legality of greed or figure out when it was illegal. Reminds me of a certain someone saying, “I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money.” Greed is not good, but  greed as it is referred to here and in many films is wanting to make a lot of money.

A few terms you constantly hear portrayed negatively in today’s media are

• big business
• wall street
• oil executives

This list could go for miles but it is interesting to hear these terms used negatively today then read similar tones in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. Perhaps the most evident anti-business message has been sent from President Obama when giving a commencement speech at Arizona State in 2009.

For we gather here tonight in times of extraordinary difficulty, for the nation and the world. The economy remains in the midst of a historic recession, the result, in part, of greed and irresponsibility that rippled out from Wall Street and Washington.

Many of you have been taught to chase after the usual brass rings: being on this “who’s who” list or that top 100 list; how much money you make and how big your corner office is; whether you have a fancy enough title or a nice enough car. You can take that road – and it may work for some of you. But at this difficult time, let me suggest that such an approach won’t get you where you want to go; that in fact, the elevation of appearance over substance, celebrity over character, short-term gain over lasting achievement is precisely what your generation needs to help end.

As is usual with Obama government is the answer. This is not a new trend, it is a battle that has been going on for a long time and will continue to go on in the future. Reading Rand’s book gives me hope that although the future looks bleak and it seems that government hinders business far too much, there are always individuals who step up and do what they can. That is to provide a good or service better than anyone else or that no one else provides. In turn this benefits consumers and also provides jobs. Individuals will continue to do this no matter what obstacles the government or anyone else may throw at them.

investing and more investing

Today Obama released the budget for the 2012 fiscal year. Plenty of writers and news outlets have analyzed the data and looked at precisely what this budget means so I do not want to focus completely on that, but I do want to list two important aspects of the budget.

1. Throughout the 10 year projection of the budget at no point would the government spend less than it takes in.
2. The deficit will be 10.9% of GDP which is a post World War II record.

 

Many, myself included, believe Obama missed an opportunity with this budget. David Rogers of Politico wrote, “Obama appears to have hurt his cause by not being more bold in approaching the debt problem facing the nation.”

Virtually every member of Congress made a statement about the budget but I thought Mick Mulvaney (R-SC) put it best saying that he thought it was a joke.

I thought it was a joke. It’s hard to explain how detached from reality this is, to think that the country can spend another $1.6 trillion when it doesn’t have the means. It means either you haven’t been paying attention or you don’t care. It’s absurd; [it’s] especially disturbing in light of encouraging language he used at State of the Union address.

Hopefully Republicans and Democrats will work together and make legitimate cuts that will balance the budget in the future. This will be a fight and hopefully in the end the budget will be much more fiscally responsible than the one proposed by the president today.

2011 SOTU

The teleprompter in chief will be speaking at prom night in DC the State of The Union address tonight at 8:55 eastern.  Or as Michelle Malkin as put it, “talk like a Republican day.”

The SOTU  is usually extremely long because of the applause the President is inevitability interrupted with during his message, but on the bright side we don’t have to stare at Nancy Pelosi throughout the speech.

I will be liveblogging the speech here so if you do not want to watch it or just want to read my commentary be sure to check it during and after the speech. I will also likely be liveblogging Paul Ryan’s response after the President’s speech.

Michelle Bachmann will be giving a Tea Party response which will be broadcast online.

Chief Justice John Roberts will be there tonight but Samuel Alito will not which is not surprising considering this happened last year.

Text of Obama’s speech here and according to Dana Perino of the 6,082 words only 207 relate to health care.

Text of Ryan’s rebuttal here

8:16 PM Central: Obama’s first portion of the speech is centered around Congress working together because now bills must be passed by support from both Republicans and Democrats. Is that what the November elections told him?

8:26 Oak Ridge getting some love from 44

At Oak Ridge National Laboratory, they’re using supercomputers to get a lot more power out of our nuclear facilities.  With more research and incentives, we can break our dependence on oil with biofuels, and become the first country to have 1 million electric vehicles on the road by 2015.

8:31 Obama keeps referencing “winning the future” and other Newt Gingrich ideas. Several people on twitter are noticing this.

8:37 “The third step in winning the future…” more Gingrich. I can’t wait to hear what he says about this speech.

8:48 After a brief note on health care Obama begins talking about the spending freeze which before the speech a great rebuttal was given by Jim DeMint

9:00 Obama praises Republicans and Democrats for passing the START Treaty. Unfortunately TN Senators Alexander and Corker BOTH voted for it. It was a terrible piece of legislation.

9:06 Obama mentions repeal of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” and the camera cuts to millitary men who sit without applauding. Democrats give standing ovation.

9:12 “From the earliest days of our founding, America has been the story of ordinary people who dare to dream. That’s how we win the future.” More Gingrich…

Now let’s see what Paul Ryan has got.

9:27 Ryan is doing a good job of talking about what the President has actually done versus what he says he is going to do.

9:29 “Americans are skeptical of both political parties, and that skepticism is justified.” He goes on to say that Congress owes it to the American people to do a better job.

Very interesting Ryan is focusing almost solely on the economy and jobs. This is what Americans want to hear.

9:34

Millions of families have fallen on hard times not because of our ideals of free enterprise – but because our leaders failed to live up to those ideals; because of poor decisions made in Washington and Wall Street that caused a financial crisis, squandered our savings, broke our trust, and crippled our economy.

Great job focusing on jobs and the economy. Also he didn’t blame just the Democrats but all of Congress.

Really interested to hear what Michelle Bachmann has to say, I know it will be interesting.

9:49 In opening she says that she was invited to speak and it is not meant to compete with the official Republican response.

Bachmann uses a chart that shows unemployment from the Bush presidency to the Obama presidency.

9:55 “We will push forward…we will proclaim liberty throughout the land.”

Michelle Malkin points out that Bachmann practices what she preaches even though Congressman Ryan does not always do so.

People seem to be up in arms over Bachmann’s response. Apparently pointing out how Obama’s agenda has hurt our economy is uncivil.

Obama’s oil spill grade: B+

You may or may not remember that Obama gave himself a B+ after Oprah Winfrey asked him how he would grade his first year as president. If not here is a link http://bit.ly/7SSL5F

Given that grading scale I think we can all agree that he should get at least a B+ on his fast response to the oil spill in the Gulf. Even his biggest fans supporters have been outraged by his lack of a response. MSNBC all-star Keith Olbermann was furious with President Obama. After the speech Olbermann said, “”It was a great speech if you were on another planet for the last 57 days.” http://bit.ly/aycJe0 What would the liberals be doing if a Republican president had taken this long to respond to this oil spill? I thought they went crazy over Katrina, but I can only imagine the hysteria that the left would be bathing in right now if Joh McCain had done this. Many have compared this to Katrina including Karl Rove who wrote a great article in late May comparing the two: http://bit.ly/bYOHwH

This week the RNC debuted a video which contains exactly what Obama did during the 58 days where he was you know…looking for an ass to kick, telling people to plug the damn hole, etc.