Who Is Worse Off than Spain?

Vibrant Europe, Dying Europe: The curse of a pseudo-elite. No nation is immune.

JP Morgan via AlsoSprachAnalyst
The table above compares different European nations by a number of unfavourable characteristics, leading one to think that Spain may be the worst of the lot, overall. But if one looks at the US after only a few years under Obama, one begins to get a sense of a truly epic downfall.

Mr. Obama's agenda might best be seen as a grand plan to increase poverty. Here is a look at a small aspect of Mr. Obama's tax policy:

[President Obama's] ...statements about the benefits of such a [tax increase are] complete nonsense. How do you help the economy recover when you take away incentives for job creators? The reason capital gains rates are low is because Congress at some point realized that the economy would benefit from job and wealth creation by incentivizing entrepreneurs and investors, and the government would receive more revenue.

If I were president* and wanted to stimulate the economy, I would want to loosen the reins on job creators and let them run. I would be pleased if they got immensely rich and would gladly confiscate tax a greater profit at a lower rate because of the wealth and jobs they created (see AAPL, MSFT, etc.).

The President has a point about wealth disparity though. But what he fails to see is that government is largely responsible for this because of the financialization of the economy. That is, government policies have made it more rewarding to speculate than invest in productive enterprises. The solution isn’t to redistribute wealth, but to cure the underlying problem. Taxing the “rich” is the wrong way to do that. I can guarantee you that the taxes so raised will not raise the standard of living of the 99 percenters, rather it will be wasted on government programs that haven’t been effective.

The effect of his proposed tax will have the opposite effect he intends (“unintended consequences”). Instead of spurring the economy and creating jobs, thus creating more wealth, it will deter investment, cause capital and entrepreneurs to take less risks relative to the rewards, and increase the financialization of the economy. By failing to reward investors and entrepreneurs, production will shrink, wealth will be more concentrated, and the 99 percenters will become the 99,9 percenters. _DailyCapitalist

Mr. Obama has never been the brightest penny in the roll or the sharpest knife in the rack. But he may well be the most corrupt and most ideological president in US history at the same time. Combine his crony capitalism with his war against the private sector and his agenda of energy starvation, and the result is economic and intellectual stagnation.

As long as that country continues under Obama, if the US is not already worse off than Spain in many ways, it will be.

Under Obama, the debt debacle has just begun.