By Mr. Curmudgeon:
While Team Obama presses on with its campaign to frighten anxious Americans away from freedom and its residual energy, capitalism, Obama's anti-free market ethos is etching an indelible mark on our society.
Friday, the "official" unemployment rate in America bumped up to 8.3% from its previous 8.2%, and the Department of Labor Statistics' U-6 number (the jobless rate for Americans who have run through their unemployment benefits and still cannot find work) stands at a staggering 14.9%.
The Labor department also broke down the jobless U-6 figures for the states: Nevada (Harry Reid's state) 22.1%; California 20.3%; Rhode Island 18.3%; Florida 17%; Ohio and Pennsylvania stand at 14%.
"The lack of improvement in state U-6 rates continues to be troubling," Chris Mauro, a municipal bond investment specialist, told CNBC, "... state U-6 levels remain dramatically higher than they were in 2007 and 2008."
The stubborn real unemployment rate of Obamanomics undermines the income redistribution dreams of governments (federal, state and local) and reduces the credit worthiness of consumers.
What Obamanomics lacks in tangible job creation, it more than makes up for in the growth of another commodity ... fear."What am I going to do if I'm homeless?" asked 52-year-old Laurie Cullinan, an out-of-work office manager whose unemployment benefits are about to run out, "My mind won't let me comprehend that," reports USA TODAY.
"More Americans who are concerned about the teetering financial system dependent on government handouts are preparing for a potential doomsday scenario," writes CNBC reporter Jane Wells, "They have been dubbed 'Suburban Survivalists,' and they're one reason stocks of companies like Cabela's and Big Five have more than doubled since the start of the year."
Wells relates how Jim Wiseman, a La Jolla, California fire protection contractor, has stacked enough canned goods in his garage to feed 10 people for a year, installed a 250-gallon water tank, purchased a portable electric generator and assembled enough weapons to protect his stores and family.
Washington's response to the financial crisis - bank bailouts and redistributive "stimulus" - fed Wiseman's fears, "If this was our response from the government to fix the problem, then I can't depend on them to provide for me and my family," the father of five told CNBC.
Obama's economic prescriptions, writes Wells, told Wiseman the nation's community-organizer's aim was not to "let the free markets work, but to hand out money."
Entitlement-dazed Americans are getting a first-class lesson in basic economics from the man who proudly proclaimed, "When you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."
Obama and the Federal Reserve have spent untold trillions of dollars to sustain big governments internationally (even down to the state level), coupled with bailouts for their crony-capitalist enablers. Elbowed out of the credit markets, the "you didn't build that" small business sector (the largest employer in America) cannot grow.
Shrinking government tax receipts means entitlement programs are running out of money, and it's only a matter of time before international investors in U.S. debt (China) stop propping up a going-out-of-business America.
No economic growth, no "wealth to spread around." Parasitical socialism is killing its capitalist host.
"We have the right as individuals to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity," said frontier Congressman Davy Crockett, "but as members of Congress we have no right to appropriate a dollar of the public money."
Of course, Crockett lived at a time when Congress governed under the limits placed upon its power by the United States Constitution. Securing individual freedom, not providing fictional economic security, was its chief responsibility under the law.
After his defeat for re-election in 1836, Crockett's farewell speech was classic. He told a constituent gathering that he was "done with politics for the present" and that they "might all go to hell, and I will go to Texas."
Unlike the Americans of today, Crocket hunted his own food, once killing a bear (if the story is true) with nothing more than a pack of hunting dogs and his knife.
As you surely know, Crocket's Texas adventure didn't go so well. His rugged self-reliance - emulated by Jim Wiseman of La Jolla - didn't spare him from the bayonets affixed to rifles commanded by the big-government dictator of Mexico, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna.
Attaining power, not providing economic security for the people, is big government's chief goal. To achieve this, big government must destroy any possibility for free Americans to achieve self-reliance.
We can all go to Texas, but Obama's distructive big government will be waiting.
