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Obama: Keynesian Economics or Cloward-Piven Strategy

The Main Stream Media and Liberal defense of Obama’s Economic Policy has been that he is using “Keynesian Economics” to stabilize our economy and to give him time. Well it’s time to look at Keynesian Economics and see if it matches.

According to BusinessDictionary.com Keynesian Economics is:

..the assertion that the aggregate demand created by households, businesses and the government and not the dynamics of free markets is the most important driving force in an economy. This theory further asserts that free markets (despite the assertion of 18th century Scottish economist Adam Smith and other classical economists) has no self-balancing mechanisms that lead to full employment. Keynesian economists urge and justify a government’s intervention in the economy through public policies that aim to achieve full employment and price stability. Their ideas have greatly influenced governments the world-over in accepting their responsibility to provide full or near-full employment through measures (such as deficit spending) that stimulate aggregate demand.

According to Investopedia

What Does Keynesian Economics Mean?
An economic theory stating that active government intervention in the marketplace and monetary policy is the best method of ensuring economic growth and stability.

Investopedia explains Keynesian Economics
A supporter of Keynesian economics believes it is the government’s job to smooth out the bumps in business cycles. Intervention would come in the form of government spending and tax breaks in order to stimulate the economy, and government spending cuts and tax hikes in good times, in order to curb inflation.

My Analysis:

  1. If Obama were actually using Keynesian principles he would, in these troubled times, be giving tax breaks to the rich in order to stimulate and aid the economy, instead we are expecting massive tax increases on the rich which will kill the economy. Not renewing the Bush tax cuts equals a tax hike, exact opposite of the Keynesian explanation.
  2. The Health Care Law amounts to a tax increase on business forcing them to make cuts and layoffs as well as drop coverage to employees.
  3. The pending Cap & Trade Bill is a massive tax increase on every business and every individual. The Coal industry will be unable to continue and electricity/gas prices will skyrocket. The increased price of energy will trickle down to kill manufacturing in the USA and if anything is made here, it will be too expensive to purchase on top of raised domestic energy costs. The lack of suitable energy to replace coal will cause mass rolling blackouts. Not very economically stimulating, therefor anti-Keynesian.
  4. The Financial Reform Bill does little to Wall St. but affects banks that would loan to small businesses, in short, don’t expect any loan. No loan no business, no business no contribution to the economy, hence, anti-Keynesian.
  5. The Many Stimulus Bills, on the surface appear keynesian, borrowing money, even deficit spending, in order to stimulate the economy and create or save jobs. However once you look into to the actual projects and the prices for them, you realize the majority of these projects are complete wastes of money and are therefor frauds which have no positive affect on the US economy, lasting or temporary.

I have made the case he is not using Keynesian Economics, now I’ll explain what I believe he is doing.

The Cloward-Piven Strategy from DiscoverTheNetworks.org

“First proposed in 1966 and named after Columbia University sociologists Richard Andrew Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, the “Cloward-Piven Strategy” seeks to hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse.”

“In their 1966 article, Cloward and Piven charged that the ruling classes used welfare to weaken the poor; that by providing a social safety net, the rich doused the fires of rebellion. Poor people can advance only when “the rest of society is afraid of them,” Cloward told The New York Times on September 27, 1970. Rather than placating the poor with government hand-outs, wrote Cloward and Piven, activists should work to sabotage and destroy the welfare system; the collapse of the welfare state would ignite a political and financial crisis that would rock the nation; poor people would rise in revolt; only then would “the rest of society” accept their demands.”

“The key to sparking this rebellion would be to expose the inadequacy of the welfare state. Cloward-Piven’s early promoters cited radical organizer Saul Alinsky as their inspiration. “Make the enemy live up to their (sic) own book of rules,” Alinsky wrote in his 1989 book Rules for Radicals. When pressed to honor every word of every law and statute, every Judaeo-Christian moral tenet, and every implicit promise of the liberal social contract, human agencies inevitably fall short. The system’s failure to “live up” to its rule book can then be used to discredit it altogether, and to replace the capitalist “rule book” with a socialist one.”

Another title to this strategy has been “The Strategy of Manufactured Crisis” to go with what we have heard from this administration we could call it “The Strategy of Never Waste a Crisis” but I digress…

The objective is quite simple, overwhelm the system with impossible demands and it will collapse, in the chaos that follows you implement a Socialist system to “Save” everyone because “Capitalism falied” them and they will simply accept it.

Are we seeing this in play? I believe we are – this has been Obama’s plan from the beginning.

  1. The National Debt is near the breaking point and we have been warned by Moody’s that if we don’t stop spending we will lose our AAA credit rating, yet Obama continues to spend frivilously.
  2. Even the EU, which is in dire straits with riots in Greece and Spain has decided to stop the spending, yet Obama chastises them for it and demands they continue spending like he is.
  3. Obama’s non-Keynesian economics do not bolster the economy, but create uncertainty. Uncertainty in business does not encourage hirings, which would stimulate the economy, but layoffs and cutbacks just in case.
  4. The way he has demonized the rich, in his own words, and other comments made by Obama demonstrate that he is no friend of business or free market but instead has Socialistic goals.
  5. The Health Care Bill did nothing to lower the costs of Healthcare itself and forces insurance companies to raise premiums in order to cover all the new people added to the rolls that have existing treatment needs but never payed into the pool. By denying them the power to raise their prices, Obama is forcing them into Bankruptcy. He will then Implement the Socialistic “Public Option” to replace the Insurance Companies. Nancy pelosi did promise us that we, “will be begging for the Public Option.”
  6. The rampant unemployment due to Obama’s economic policies is bankrupting the entire State/Federal unemployment benefit system and overwhelming it. Directly inline with Cloward-Piven goals. The majority of the 50 States are at or near bankruptcy and cannot afford to pay for their own infrastructure let alone all the unemployed in this “Recession”
  7. Those lovely stimulus bills did not spend responsibly in any way, shape, or form. You can do a simple google search and find idiotic projects next to mindboggling prices. The worst part to this waste is that quite a bit even went overseas to be wasted there. Telling Hookers to drink responsibly in China, Fossil research in Argentina, and more, which could have absolutely 0 positive affect on the US economy.
  8. The rapid expansion of Government agencies and infrastructure only hastens economic collapse, not slows it. Government by nature is a leech feeding off of private business. The Government does not generate any income only takes it from productive citizens in the form of taxes and therefor cannot pay for itself.
  9. And finally, the last straw on the US economy’s back will be the Cap & Trade bill if implemented. Any business not over-outfitted with alternative energy will cease to exist on its own. Big Business will cut production, institute mass layoff’s, and dramatically draw down operations. Small business will die. This is economic armageddon and the deathblow to free enterprise and Capitalism.

Once fully implemented the Cloward-Piven Strategy will collapse all free enterprise. Obama will then move to Nationalize everything in order to “Save the economy” This I believe is where Obama is bringing us. However, The strategy will not end peacefully regardless of what its inventors predicted. The American People will resist the implementation of Socialism and will always rally behind freedom, not control.

In my opinion this Manufactured “Economic Collapse” will bring about riots and chaos in the streets worse than we are seeing in Greece and Spain. When we have radical militant groups such as The New Black Panthers and Farrakhan’s Fruit of Islam preaching racial hatred and violence, and Unions such as the SEIU who feel storming the home of a banker is ok, you can infer that their will be great violence from the Left .  This is not part of Cloward-Piven but part of the Communist takeover. Obama prepared for the ability to use violence in January with his “Council of Governors” Executive Order wherein 10 Governors will be chosen to run the country with Obama in the event of Civil Disturbances and Martial Law amongst other factors.  Obama willl use the violence from the economic collapse, fueled by the racial divide the Left is bringing along with anti Capitalist sentiments,and the clearly biased media to implement Martial Law and suspend elections and freedom itself. They have tried to bait the Tea Party into being the violent group but that has proven ineffective so now he waits for the left to attack.
According to the Army Times we already have Soldiers with “Homeland Tours” as a “New Dwell Time Mission” beginning on October 1st. 2010 for deployment within the USA.  “They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control or to deal with potentially horrific scenarios such as massive poisoning and chaos in response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE, attack”.  The article goes on to detail all the extensive training they are recieving for this new mission and new equipment such as tazers.
Cloward-Piven strategy is being used as a means to an end, nothing more and according to the Left’s hero Saul Alinsky, “The ends justify the means” regardless of the suffering caused. All for their greater good unrealistic Communist Utopia.  The Cloward-Piven strategy won’t end the way its creators planned, but will have been effective none the less.

If interested in reading the original article written by Francis Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward, “The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End Poverty” https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/03/24-4
You can find it here at “CommonDreams.org” a website that describes itself as follows:

“CommonDreams.org is a national nonprofit, progressive, nonpartisan citizens’ organization founded in 1997 by political activists Craig Brown and his late wife, Lina Newhouser.
We are a powerful online voice for change in America.
With millions of monthly readers, we have become one of the top progressive websites.”

Yet another link between crushing capitalism and implementing Socialism as a goal of any progressive policy.

UPDATE August 1, 2010

Heres an amazing video on Cloward-Piven Strategy

Hattip to @AlinskyDefeater

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23 Comments

  1. Amazing article. Terrifyingly true.
    I am so sad to see the country I love, which was a model for other nations, has become a wayward child. Chastised by the wiser parent, credit card taken away due to irresponsible spending. Heads shaking, bewildered and wondering if the child will ever grow up. Sadly, we don’t have years to mature. The teetering has begun, and we are perched in just the right place for a great fall.
    I think Reagan has said it better for me, as I am not as eloquent as he, or the author of this article.

    “[G]overnment’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.” Ronald Reagan

    “A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose yours. And recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his.” Ronald Reagan

    May the words ring true again, as we substitute Obama for Carter.

  2. @ Rushgurl

    It’s not a wayward child, but a teenager who stole daddy’s car to conduct a Thelma & Louise style cliff suicide.
    The crashing of the economy is deliberate to implement Socialism.

  3. Piven and Cloward must have assumed that the average American is a Canadian at heart and will just roll over like a good doggie and lick their hand and become a good socialist boy or girl. I find this incredibly doubtful. The left will rise up, but I doubt they have the ability to stop a bunch of gun toting NRA types and other conservative if it comes to that. It would be a bad idea for the left to turn ugly with violence and win. They won’t and can’t

    I also find it equally hard to believe that if it comes to this point that the military or police are going to shoot NRA types and let the ACORN SEIU thugs run wild. Don’t think so.

    It could get ugly, but the Pelosi’s, Reids, Franks, Dodds, Obama’s of the world are cowards and bullies at heart. I don’t think they stand a chance.

    Let’s hope we have a peaceful work strike repeated as often as necessary to get their short attention span.

    There aren’t enough libs in the country to stop an organized conservative wall of humanity.

    ‘Live Free or Die” it IS that simple.

  4. @RangerRick I agree Cloward-Piven were fools expecting us to embrace Socialism.

    I don’t see the Military cracking down on NRA conservatives and ignoring Liberals, but a general Martial Law crackdown on everyone. For Obama it’s all about control, and he knows he can’t control the radicals that aren’t with him.
    The military will suppress all violence and institute Martial Law on all.
    The idea will be that you are essentially a prisoner in your own home/neighborhood.
    I hope it doesn’t come to this, or that I am completely wrong.

    1. I think that Obama will have a difficult time controlling the military, who (generally) take the oath to uphold the Constitution seriously. A better strategy for him would be to send as many overseas as possible, then make it difficult to return home. A union-run police force or other new group will be a stronger tool for him.

      1. I agree but theres something you have to realize. Officers take the oath to the Constitution. Enlisted take an oath to obey all lawful orders from the President of the United States. That being said it comes down to a judgement call on every individual soldier. No most wont obey a blatantly uncontitutional order. But ordered in to suppress riots, they would act. After that oppression comes in bits & pieces till he replaces the military with the Private Army he has said he wants.

  5. Please read the Cloward and Piven paper. All it discussed was a strategy to bring the Democratice party (the party in power at the time) to pay more attention to the plight of the poor. It did not discuss overthrowing the government or turning the country into a socialist or communist state, as some would have you believe.

  6. If you look at what the Democrats have done, and the kinds of changes they have instituted over the past 50+ years, you will see that this is exactly what they are doing. Electing Obama and his extensive experience in being involved with Communist and Muslim terror groups qualifies him to be the man for the job of not President, but the person who could give the Democrat party members like Pelosi and Reid the control over the countries economy and control over America’s people. Already all they had to do was stop issuing drilling and pumping, and construction of pipelines for accessing our oil reserves, resources, permits and we have to bow to Arab price restrictions on the price per barrel and the results at the pump for gasoline. American’s lifestyles are already being altered and maybe for an indefinate time. Only people who have the income, for right now that is, to keep up with the increases of prices of gas, food, insurance, medical, transportation, and housing who are going to be the only ones who will survive longer than the rest of us.

    I hope that if our society begins to collapse that there are those in the military who will take charge over a large a number of soldiers and equipment as they can and assault the Capital buildings and try to capture as many Democrats as they can. They could very easily find out all the secret hiding places the representatives know they can go to be safe, and these military patriots will go there to. If they have to take out some of them who resist then so be it, but that is not the purpose of capturing them. Capturing them can bring the riots to an end because these traitors can order the military who are attacking the civilian population to stand down, and the cops to if there are any left. If they will not join the people who paid their salary for decades then they will be considered the enemy along with Muslim terrorists attacking us. I’ve already informed my local police chief that there will come a time where he will have to choose sides, and it had better be our side, or he will be considered along with those who are attacking this country as defenders of the terrorists.

    I don’t want to see my country fall like this. I do not see this situation as God’s will being done according to His word in the Holy Bible. We are at that time when “powers and principalities” are who is at war with us, His creations, man. And if that is what is going on, then so be it I can understand that more than some idiot like that Communist Obama and the damn Muslims wanting to take over the world. We’ve dealt with that kind of threat before during WWII and Hitler. I will fight for my country and I will not tolerate being considered a “domestic terrorist” in my own country by a bunch of dumb cops who can’t see the forest for the trees. There will be a great defending of this nation. I feel sorry for anyone who gets in the way.

  7. I keep hearing from some conservative talk show hosts who say that the only way to get rid of Obama is to “vote” him out of office and the same for the Socialist Demcrats. That’s fine if we weren’t hanging on by our finger nails, to a twig, on the edge of a cliff, over a bottomless pit. Okay? We’ve never been in this situation. And here our fearless leader gives a award to the very men who came up with the plan the Democrats have been using to crush this nation. He gave it a couple of months ago and the media never let out a peep about it. No, I guess they wouldn’t. Besides, no one would know who they were or what they had done. These two men are alive and well in the country that they made up this horrific plan to destroy. If I could I would like to get these two bastards on the TV and ask them, “How do you like what you’ve done so far?” “Do you think your idea was good or bad for the very country that has given you and your families a better life than you could have had in any other kind of society?” “Do you think that turning America into a smoking ember is a good idea as far as how our nation is the driving force for capitalism in countries who are experiencing prosperity for the first time in their history, and happiness it is bringing to a people who’ve known nothing but suffering all their lives?” “Do you think America deserves to be brought to it’s knees just for the sake of a handful of people who don’t like it when people don’t have to rely on government to take care of them, but rather they take care of themselves?” “How is it that you’ve been able to take care of yourselves all these years without having to rely on the government for everything you need, but rather you provided for your own needs from your own effort?” “Do you think that if the American people found out who you were, and that you were the ones who were responsible for our countries problems economically, things like Freddie/Fannie’s downfall, and the seemingly never ending fulfilling of every need that a human being could have being paid for by those who work every day and pay taxes they really didn’t need to pay, but rather those who had needs could have been taken care of by those people’s own effort, but had it not been for you America would have the most prosperous people of any country in the world, and people got hold of you and hung you from the nearest lamp pole, do you think they would be justified in their judgement of you both?” “Can you imagine how much I hate you two, and all those in the government who follow your plan, and Obama because he is a fraud that no one will touch because he’s Black?”

  8. Amazon is a wonderful website. Not only is the website well done, but it simplifies things by giving detailed product reviews and customer reviews. With amazon’s amazing customer service, I don’t know why I would shop anywhere else. Thanks Amazon for everything.

  9. John Maynard Keynes was a socialist who thought the feds should intervene (READ: CONTROL) the marketplace. Free market capitalism is unrecognizable under his theories. Tax breaks for wealthy people (corporate business/job creators) would be rendered ineffective under regulation and the suppression of the principles of supply and demand. Sound familiar? As for Cloward and Piven, Obama’s right down their alley.
    Both concepts are diametrically opposed to capitalism.

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