CRASH: Give The Dog A Bone

Speaking of October Surprises, there are rumors afoot that Obama will sponsor a package of tax cuts for business.  My navy brethren have a saying about carnal knowledge with the domestic canine, which seems to fit as we talk about Obamanomics and its effects.

Unemployment (not the least unexpectedly) is up.  The economy is in the doldrums, with not a ghost of a breeze in sight.  For months, Obama and his myrmidons in Congress and his departments have been on a crusade to convert America into the Obamabanana Republic.  They have done so to an amazing extent, undermining essential concepts of contract, property, government limit, and even such rule-driven fields as bankruptcy.

Nothing is more lethal to capital formation than uncertainty.  If you know a liar is a consistent liar, that is something to which you can assign a risk value.  It is something you can manage, as well.  If you don't know what a person will do...if they are all over the map and show no ties to reality...you cannot assign a risk to that person's conduct.  The only safe, rational value to assign is one approaching unity...complete risk of loss.

The Obami and Congress have been spinning off tendrils of uncertainty like cotton candy at the County Fair, and business and capital have reacted as one would predict.  It seems that not a day goes by without some new hostility being imposed by the Federal government against business...which is to say against PEOPLE who need to work, invest, and purchase.

High taxes are one thing; a hostile environment is another.  We have both in spades.  We have a President who has signaled that he detests and distrusts the capitalist system, regardless of his professions to the contrary.

So, for him to offer a package of business tax cuts now...roughly sixty days before an election...would have the OPPOSITE effect it might have from anyone else.  From Obama it would be a crass, cynical political ploy.  It would also be of very dubious duration.

Sure, it would put some money back in the hands of those to whom it belongs...PRODUCERS, if you're fuzzy on the concept.  That is ALWAYS good and right to do.  That would have a mild stimulative effect (I shudder to use the term today).  But the greater effect of such a POLICY (as opposed to "ploy") is to assure people in an economy that that notion...keeping more of what they earn...is something they can count on.

Any turn in that direction from Obama would mean the Mad Mouse ride of his Obamanomics had just made another gut-lurching, incoherent veer.  Nobody with a brain would consider it genuine, because it would certainly not be genuine.  Everyone would see it was inconsistent with who Obama is, and what his policies have been and done, and everyone would know that...like most Obama promises or proffers...it has an expiration date.


Bottom line; after you've screwed the pooch for approaching two years, offering it a bone isn't going to bring it scampering back.  A business tax cut won't bring the magic to unicorn economics...or save Deemocrats from the WAVE.