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“Stimulus Package”: The Obama - XOM debate simmers on

Posted August 6, 2008

Obama wants Exxon (XOM) to pay for his shot at the presidency. Is pointing this strategy out “uncivil”? Is promised “change” necessary — or truly desirable?

by J. Christoph Amberger

Baltimore — (TFN): Responding to my article “Obama expects Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) investors to buy him his presidency”, reader PK de C’ville responded:

“If you keep on referring to Obama as ‘The Anointed One’, will that sarcastic smear be enough to get Sen McCain elected? Have you lost your minds? Do you think another 4 years of Republican leadership is good for this country? If you do, argue that. Stop with the sly bullshit. Or some will start commenting on ‘Angry Mr Magoo’. Let’s see now. America votes and people are thinking, ‘Should I vote for The Anointed One or Angry Mr Magoo?’ Hope you get my point. Let’s get out of the gutter and seriously honor the choice we have to make this November. It’s called good citizenship. Regards and I mean no disrespect to Sen McCain or Sen Obama.”

The question at this point seems to be not if four more years of a Republican Administration is “good for this country”. It is “whose program will prevent the United States from becoming a complete economic basket-case.”

Based on Obama’s platform, the question if, at the beginning of what could be a protracted global recession, a heavy-handed tax and confiscation policy (let’s call the “windfall redistribution” by its proper name) is truly commendable seems easy to answer:

History, for those who usually profess to be eager to “learn” from it, argues that it is not. Not ever. Not anywhere.

If a candidate campaigning on a platform of unilateral appeasement is the man to see America through an ongoing war on terror, a potential confrontation with Iran, an increasingly militant rivalry with China, and a Russian prime minister who just advocated that Russia needs to be “back in Cuba” is quite another matter. Obama has posed not just as anti-War but anti-military. Sure, he has changed his mind before (most recently on offshore drilling) — but are were really ready to gamble on a Pauline conversion?

(Ironically, military spending has historically been the ultimate stimulus package. Just asks Messrs. Roosevelt and Reagan. FDR even managed to knock the United States’ main economic rival, the British Empire, from the map by his deft manipulation of foreign policy. Literally. AND he armed an enemy who would keep the military-industrial complex awash in cash for half a century. Post-WWII dominance of the United States would have been unthinkable without lend-lease and forced military spending. Then why gripe about the $10 billion a month going into the Iraq/Afghanistan war and only piddle around with a $1,000 a year redistribution check?)

Global competition has increased not just from China and India, but from Europe: Even retro-socialist Germany and France have revamped their tax systems and lowered business taxes to BELOW the U.S. rate. (That happened under the Bush administration.) How attractive do you think this makes the United States as a magnet for new business in the era of “Caravam Capitalism” — where corporations’ strategic horizons have contracted to the limits of their quarterly reports and money follows the cheapest labor and the lowest cost?

Or, vice versa, how many years can U.S. corporations truly afford to be headquartered (and taxable) in the U.S. — if Dubai, Hong Kong, maybe soon Mumbai offer a better deal that pays for itself in tax savings in a quarter?

Think Halliburton is the only company that can move its taxable revenues from the U.S. jurisdiction? I haven’t met a Texan yet who has welcomed their corporate emigration. A Texan with numbers sense that is…

I am no big fan of McCain. But clearly a market-based economy (as much as this is still possible in this country) is preferable to top-down meddling from someone who apparently has no clue regarding his own finances.

And of course, in a media-created atmosphere of complete irrational, uncritical adulation of one particular candidate — as inexperienced and isolated from real-world experience as this one — , the ironic use of “Anointed One” is not only permissable. But right on the money.

If I say so myself.

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Posted by J. Christoph Amberger · Filed Under Politics 

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