Obama's Crisis Management System

Here is an exclusive look.

Oddly, I see parallels to a prior story done here.

Andrew Klavan Presents: Obamanomics 101

Surprise!

Mary Katherine Ham: Obamacare Medical Device Tax Already Killing Jobs In the Industry.

Happy Birthday, F.A. Hayek!

From Reason.com.  In honor of his birthday, I invite readers to read (or reread) The Great Utopia from his book, The Road to Serfdom, a work that remains remarkably applicable today, though written more than 70 years ago.

Don't Know Much About History

GayPatriot offers a history lesson for the President:

When President Obama talks about the economy, it seems he derives his information not from historical facts, but instead from Keynesian theory. At a campaign fundraiser in Maine, the politician once billed as post-partisan accused his partisan rivals of “madness”:

“We won’t win the race for new jobs and new businesses and middle-class security if we cling to this same old, worn-out, tired ‘You’re on your own’ economics that the other side is peddling,” Obama said.
“It was tried in the decades before the Great Depression. It didn’t work then. It was tried in the last decade. It didn’t work,” he said. “You know, the idea you would keep on doing the same thing over and over again, even though it’s been proven not to work. That’s a sign of madness.”

Well, the economics that the incumbent derides as “You’re on your own” created more jobs in September 1983 than were created in the past five months, among the best months for job creation since Mr. Obama took office.

In the decade** before the Great Depression, under the policies of Republicans Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge, the United States enjoyed the “Roaring Twenties,” an era of “sustained economic prosperity.“ It was only when Coolidge’s successor, Herbert Hoover, increased federal spending and ramped up government regulation, that the economy began to collapse, leading to the Great Depression.

Under Hoover and his successor Franklin Delano Roosevelt, federal officials tried various forms of state meddling over and over again, yet none of those policies proved to work. Throughout the 1930s, unemployment remained high. By this president’s logic, wouldn’t it be a sign of madness to adopt economic policies similar to Mr. Roosevelt’s? Or Mr. Hoover’s?

Perhaps someone should show Obama this chart?

U.K.'s 25% Tax Hike on the 'Rich' Produces Less Revenue

What a surprise!  The Tax Professor has a roundup on this news and reactions, including the following from the Wall Street Journal:

Speaking of higher taxes (and President Obama always does), there's news from once fair Britannia.

Preliminary figures out this week show that Britain's 50% top marginal income-tax rate may have reduced tax revenue from top earners by as much as 5%, compared to the old 40% top rate. Tax revenue from those filing self-assessments due January 31 was down some £500 million versus last year. ...

What this week's numbers teach, however, is that Britain's richest taxpayers are simply shifting their incomes, or themselves, offshore, or deferring income, or otherwise arranging their affairs to avoid the confiscatory new top tax rate. Maybe that's unfair, too—the rich are usually better at protecting their assets—but it's the predictable consequence of a tax rate whose animating purposes are envy and spite.

There's a lesson here for the Obama Administration, not that it is likely to heed it any more than Mr. Cameron.

 Via Instapundit.

A Fairness Quiz for the President

Althouse: "Is it fair that some of Mr. Obama's largest campaign contributers received federal loan guarantees?: Stephen Moore, at the Wall Street Journal, noting that Obama likes to talk about economic fairness, has "A Fairness Quiz for the President."

Obamanomics vs. Reaganomics

Over at the Forbes website, Daniel J. Mitchell compares the results of Obamanomics vs. Reaganomics.  Guess what?  As the chart to the left indicates, it isn't even close.  Read the whole article.

A Balanced Assessment of Obama's State of the Union Speech

Over at The Atlantic, the always insightful Megan McArdle offers her take on Obama's speech.  She found:

the speech was better-written and better-delivered than many of the critics I read this morning; it had a lot of good applause lines (along with, yes, the groaner about spilled milk), and the president is stylistically a very good speaker.

But I also thought that, three years in, I'd like to see a little more from his speeches than base-pleasing applause lines and pleasing delivery.  The content of the speech was sorely disappointing. 

The harsh way to put it is that the speech was an extended whine about how all the rich bankers and George Bush have screwed everything up.  That was fine campaign rhetoric when he was a Senator.  But it's pretty weak when he's been in charge for most of a full term--two years of that with a majority in congress.

Of course, one can argue--correctly--that Obama actually doesn't have the power to fix the economy; the recession was deeper than he thought it would be.  I'm entirely sympathetic to this argument except for one thing, which is that Barack Obama got himself elected by claiming that "the Republicans have driven the economy into a ditch" and he could drive it out again.  It doesn't seem unfair to judge him on his failure to actually deliver what he promised . . . .

A Message Republicans Would Do Well to Remember This Election

Unexpectedly, Obama's First Re-Election Ad Is "Filled With Fibs."

"In his very first TV ad of the 2012 campaign, the president is feeding the public false information about America's dependence on foreign fuels. His twisted statistics actually celebrate the Obama recession."

Blocking the Keystone Pipeline

Powerline has two articles explaining why Obama's Keystone decision is both an economic disaster and an environmental disaster. 

The eventual Republican nominee may be wise to consider this advice:  "If Republicans spend half their time between now and November talking about energy, we will have a new president in 2013."

Summarizing Everything Obama Knows About Economics in One Blog Post

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Three Years Under Obama: By Bill Whittle

In this video, Bill Whittle offers, with his typical insight, a look back on the last three years under Obama.  A concise, if depressing, assessment, you should watch the whole thing.  It serves as another important reminder why this is not a "sit-it-out-and-pout" election, but a "get-Obama-out" election.

Losing our Economic Freedom

This graph, prepared by the Heritage Foundation, charts America's economic freedom during the Obama presidency.  John Hinderaker at Powerline offers this commentary:

The source of America’s prosperity is no secret: our economy has historically been freer than those of almost all rivals. Unfortunately, that advantage–the essence of what America is all about–is being lost.

The Heritage Foundation has released its annual Index of Economic Freedom, and the United States has slipped to tenth place, trailing Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Canada, Chile, Mauritius and Ireland . . . .

I think that lays out the path Obama is leading us down rather clearly.