What Would Mussolini Do?

Over the next few years for better or worse, this will be the question asked. Why? Despite the fact that Il Duce is history, Il Duchess and the President now run the show.

It is trite to compare political opponents to World War II villains, but in the case of economics this works. Mussolini used an economic crisis to vault himself into power, then slowly transformed Italy into a country where the private sector could not move an inch without the government's say so.

Is it really getting that bad? Yes. In the past two months alone, Obama and Nancy Pelosi (Il Duchess) have, one or the other or both, proposed to limit executive salaries by law, fired the CEO of General Motors, contemplated taking over the banking system, forced Chrysler into a merger with a foreign company, and created such massive debt that we will only be able to pay it off by taxing the bejesus out of everyone or conquering an empire. Fascists usually end up doing both.

In a recent Wall Street Journal column, Stuart Varney explained that there was anger, not jubilation, when some of the banks had the guts to return TARP money. What the Bush Administration would have hailed as the resilience of capitalism, made the Obama crew angry. Their goal is control of the banking industry.

Nothing gets a fascist more hot and bothered than controlling a bank.

When the government takes so much control over economics, bad things happen. When a company abuses workers, the environment, or anything else, it can be held to account. Who holds the government to account when it steps beyond its bounds? During the Great Depression the government forced thousands into homelessness because some bureaucrats wanted to turn Tennessee farmland into hydroelectric power sources. Did anyone care about all those families on the streets? No, because the liberal bureaucrats kept saying it was for the greater good. For whose greater good? Certainly not those families now homeless who had been there since the 1700s. Many of them received those lands as grants for service in the Revolution. No private corporation could force those people from their property without paying them what the owner thought it was worth. And most would not have sold at any price anyone would have been willing to pay.

This is what happens when government takes over economic functions. People get hurt and there is no chance of accountability. It's called fascism. It happened before to a limited extent. What will our dabbling in fascist economics lead to this time? How many people have to have property and freedom stripped away before the voters say enough is enough?

An Article Written About West Virginia By A Connecticut Journalist With a Reply By Yours Truly

Lessons learned in West Virginia
By Christina Cio cca
Posted: 02/19/2009 08:17:54 PM EST

"West Virginia? WOOF."

This blunt and biting phrase is representative of my friends' response when I told them I'd be away for a couple of days on business in Charleston, W.Va.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," is another.

And so, with a heavy heart, I boarded my Delta shuttle at LaGuardia. My dejection came less from leaving the New York metro area, where a deathly pallor has descended on Park, Madison and even Greenwich avenues, but more because we're talking about West Virginia. For business. In my mind, there were few things further from the definition of "fun." Call me short-sighted, but the only things I have associated with West Virginia are mountains, coal mines and Habitat for Humanity.

But 24 hours later, I was encountering a different emotion. This time, it was that small euphoria that awakens when you realize that some of your deepest preconceptions are dead wrong, that you just have been taught something you didn't even know you needed to learn. These lessons are worth sharing.

First and foremost, Charleston reassured me it's possible to maintain a friendly manner, a peaceful demeanor and a low-stress lifestyle even when the country is facing "some of the largest challenges since the Great Depression," as we've heard. Speaking with some of West Virginia's business and political leaders, as I had the good fortune to do, it became clear that this news is not enough to erase a sense of optimism and hope for the future -- qualities that are
going down the drain in Washington, D.C., and the New York metro area.

Why? Perhaps because West Virginia is one of the few states that still maintains a budgetary surplus, retains a greater sense of commonality among its citizens, and borders on being "small." But I also have the feeling, after asking some questions, that it's a result of leaders joining together and approaching their state's challenges as a rational, involved, tightly knit community, one that would like to conserve what many described to me as "low-stress corporate and political life." I admit I have been working in corporate America for approximately 1 1/2 years. But I already strongly believe that this "low-stress" mentality is worth deep consideration and preservation where it already exists.

Another lesson: Leadership goes a very long way. One of my stops while in Charleston was a "viewing party" for Gov. Joe Manchin's State of the State Address. Again, I approached the experience somewhat tentatively -- how much detail did I really want or need to know about the state of West Virginia?

But as I watched the popular Democratic governor report on his state's progress, I found my mind engaged and my spirits uplifted. Here was a leader still capable of celebrating his state's achievements and laying out a series of forward-thinking, long-term goals, even while recognizing the vast challenges and sacrifices ahead. Not only was the speech delivered with energy and inspiring rhetoric, but the governor really was rooting for his state, from the lowest wage earners to those teachers responsible for raising the state's dismal educational performance to the top executives running key industries. He even gave a tribute to a University of West Virginia football player just drafted into the NFL.

Looking around the viewing party, I was struck by the number of smiles dotting the room. West Virginians were on board. A sense of possibility still seemed to exist in full force, as did my own feeling that West Virginians actually may join together to tackle the numerous challenges the governor outlined. And this is from a state that consistently has ranked among the lowest in U.S. business development.

Sadly, I am unsure that I can make similar statements about President Obama's first major press conference, where we saw not even a small glimmer of hope that our great country will come out of this crisis stronger, better and no worse for the wear. As a young American, this is a message I long to hear.

One final lesson: Friendliness goes a very long way. Walking the streets of New York City, ill humor and scowls get the gold and silver medals, respectively. Even the quaint streets of Fairfield, where my family now lives after spending most of my childhood years in Darien, have developed a bit of an edge: I recently had the door of a local retailer closed directly in my face by a disgruntled shopper. Granted, both New York City and Fairfield County are facing significant economic challenges bound to throw us all off-kilter.

Yet it was so refreshing in Charleston to have jovial conversations with cab drivers who own blueberry farms, to learn the state's political history from a camera operator while accompanying a client to a TV news interview, and to be greeted by a woman suffering from bronchitis because, "We've had such nice telephone conversations, I just had to meet you in person." These very basic elements of human kindness are not to be underestimated, especially considering today's dismal realities.

So there you have it. West Virginia in fact was one of the best times I've had in weeks. Who would've guessed?
------
Christina Ciocca is a former resident of Darien and a graduate of Greenwich Academy, Georgetown and Oxford. She now lives in Manhattan, where she works in strategic communications and public relations.

Here is my reply, posted on her newspaper:

Much of this is typical condescending Northeastern crap that West Virginians have grown accustomed to reading over the past several decades. Having spent time in Connecticut researching at Yale, I am at a loss to see where you get your heightened sense of superiority. To get there I had to run the gauntlet of the Cross Bronx Expressway, woe unto he who rolls down his or her window. Pheeewww!!!

The writer is dead on about Joe Manchin. I was in Charleston on business during his address as well. The next day I attended a gathering in his reception room where he again spoke. His emphasis on individual responsibility, his criticism of government handouts, his insistence that no one receive any help from the government unless they could prove that they had started helping themselves first were floodlights in a generally gloomy political time. I wished that, if the Democratic Party were destined to win the White House, that they would have nominated someone with experience and rock solid American economic ideals as Joe Manchin has expressed. I am sick of hearing about what I need to fear. We need to hear again that Americans have nothing to fear and will prevail. That is the difference between Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama on one hand and Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan on the other.

Please. Do not send any more young and enlightened journalists to West Virginia for personal learning experiences. Instead we will export people to your state and others to explain concepts such as the balanced budget and restrained government spending. Maybe then, the ethic of good old fashioned common sense and hard work, courtesy of your friends in the Mountain State, will help bring you out of the quagmire you all find yourselves in.

Oh, and enjoy Senator Countrywide while you are at it.

The Perception Driven Recession

Watching the news last night was kind of stunning. NBC hauled out its financial reporter who basically admitted that she had no idea why the market was slipping or what might happen next. Over and over again we hear that people's fears have led them to stop buying, change their investment habits, and basically cocoon themselves. Part of the problem here lies in perception.

First of all, a significant number of Americans have no real living memory of "hard times." The last time we really endured those was during the 1970s. If you will remember, a Democratic president attempted to implement share the wealth programs that burst the budget, shredded the fabric of society, and led to economic problems that lasted until Ronald Reagan followed the ideas of Milton Friedman and led us to prosperity.

Since then the economy has done extremely well. Our standard of living has dramatically increased, even among much of the group considered poor. we talk less about the poor starving and more about the poor being unhealthily obese. Two minor hiccups aside, we have seen the most dramatic period of expansion in national history. However all economies are subject to cycles and apparently this period of prosperity is ending. But why?

For one thing, people have no context of economic difficulty. If you listened to the Bush hating media all you heard about was how hard the economy was. A period of unemployment under 6% would have been considered amazing in the Carter years, but during the presidency of George W. Bush it was the Great Depression all over again. Those that actually lived through the Depression probably laughed at such claims. Media driven perceptions made people believe that the economy was bad when it was not. we had expansion during wars, attacks on our soil, and Katrina. These shocks individually would devastate an unsound economy.

Then came real problems. The sub prime mortgage crisis, driven by Clinton era mandates, weakened the financial sector. Add to that the energy bubble (now thankfully deflating) and you get a double whammy. Still in and of themselves, these should not have wrecked the economic ship. Perception has caused near panic to take place in investing and major purchasing. This brought on the specter of a very tough recession, tougher than necessary. Certainly Bush and Congress have done a great deal to help restore confidence, but it has not been enough to offset the damage inflicted by the media.

Hard times are difficult and people will have problems for a time. The only positive that can come from this is that it will give the current generation an understanding of what economic trouble really is. We are certainly not headed for a Great Depression or even a 1970s type recession, unless Obama tries to tax us out of our problems. However we must remain confident and optimistic that in the long run we will endure and return to prosperity again.

The Great Depression

Since the media loves to talk about it so much these days, let's have an honest look at part of what caused our greatest economic crisis.

International factors: Europe entered a crisis of their own making way before the United States felt problems. The massive war debts hung on Germany at the end of World War I stymied the economic engine of Europe. Only US loans kept that country afloat in the 1920s. When credit was cut off after the stock market crash, Germany and the rest of Europe collapsed completely.

Domestic factors: Agriculture and industry produced way too many goods for the market in a time when foreign trade was restricted by tariffs. Surpluses built up by 1929 that resulted in factories cutting jobs and food prices dipping too low for small farmers to survive. The closest analogy to today's problems was the stock market bubble fueled by irresponsible lending practices that depended upon an ever expanding market.

The response: President Herbert Hoover preached a strong adherence to classical capitalist non intervention. The Federal Reserve Board did not step in to prop up banks as they began to fail by the hundreds. At the same time, Congress passed a higher tariff that cut foreign trade by 2/3 between 1929 and 1932. The tariff, of course, was not part of classical capitalist theory. above and beyond that, the economic crisis took on political and social dimensions. People were suffering in a way we cannot imagine today. This would loosen their commitment to capitalism and later even democracy. Democratic and capitalist governments failed in Europe while even in the United States some favored the tinpot, Latin American style dictatorship of Louisiana governor Huey Long.

President Bush and Congress acted this month in a way that Hoover did not. They stepped in to prop up the banking system which is the foundation of any capitalist economy. The public perception that something is being done addresses the social fears while the action should help restore confidence in financial markets. Also the crisis has produced effects that should balance out the problems and restore some equilibrium. Here in Keyser, gas has dropped almost fifty cents in the last ten days. This drops prices across the board and puts more money into consumer pockets to pay their bills, go Christmas shopping, or do anything else.

This is not the Great Depression. Government acted decisively to stop the bleeding and I pray it works. Government intervention is like medical care. You do not need a doctor to watch over you daily, but when you get really sick, sometimes you need help. I realize this is not going to reflect the opinions of most people I know, but it's my perspective on the issue.