Bestsellers Item ID: #508Obamanomics: How Barack Obama Is Bankrupting YouProduct Information:
Item DescriptionObama Is Making You Poorer—But Who’s Getting Rich? Obamanomics discusses how Barack Obama is bankrupting you and enriching his wall street friends, corporate lobbyists, and union bosses.
Goldman Sachs, GE, Pfizer, the United Auto Workers—the same “special interests” Barack Obama was supposed to chase from the temple—are profiting handsomely from Obama’s Big Government policies that crush taxpayers, small businesses, and consumers. In Obamanomics, investigative reporter Timothy P. Carney digs up the dirt the mainstream media ignores and the White House wishes you wouldn’t see. Rather than Hope and Change, Obama is delivering corporate socialism to America, all while claiming he’s battling corporate America. It’s corporate welfare and regulatory robbery—it’s Obamanomics. Congressman Ron Paul says, “Every libertarian and free-market conservative needs to read Obamanomics.” And Johan Goldberg, columnist and bestselling author says, “Obamanomics is conservative muckraking at its best and an indispensable field guide to the Obama years.” If you’ve wondered what’s happening to America, as the federal government swallows up the financial sector, the auto industry, and healthcare, and enacts deficit exploding “stimulus packages,” this book makes it all clear—it’s a big scam. Ultimately, Obamanomics boils down to this : every time government gets bigger, somebody’s getting rich, and those somebodies are friends of Barack. This book names the names—and it will make your blood boil. Item Reviews5 Responses to “Obamanomics: How Barack Obama Is Bankrupting You”Leave a Reply |
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Until I read this book I had no idea of the connection between big business and the government. This is an excellent book that will change your thinking on bills being passed in congress.This is a good easy read. Everything is backed up with documentation/references.
Read this and you will be amazed at how our government works with big business right under your nose and you have no idea what is happening.
President Barack Obama swept into office promising a change from the policies of the Bush White House, policies that benefited large corporations with armies of lobbyists. But, a funny thing happened once he had his feet inside the Oval Office – he began practicing policies that benefitted the fattest of the fat cats, large corporations that routinely hired armies of well-heeled lobbyists.
Just what happened? Was Obama just an empty suit, a corporate shill looking to reward the businesses that funneled ten of thousands, hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars into his election fund? No. As economic journalist Timothy P. Carney amply shows in this book, big business is not against big government. In fact, big business loves big government, which stifles competition and opens opportunities to make money at the public’s expense, through mandates (forcing the public to buy things they don’t want), bail-outs (direct gifts of the public’s money to rich businessmen), and other policies.
Overall, I must say that I found this to be a fascinating book. Now, while the title might suggest that this is a Republican hit-piece on the president, in point of fact the book shows how almost all of Obama’s policies were actually begun by George W. Bush, and Obama merely took the big business-philic policies of Bush and put them on steroids. This book shows how growing the government, whether done by the Republicans or the Democrats inevitable benefits large and rich corporations at the expense of smaller businesses, with the American public inevitably paying the bill – in the form of higher prices and fewer choices.
It’s a highly informative and also very troubling expose of what the present administration’s policies mean for you and the country that your children and grandchildren will inherit. Find out just what is going on in Washington by reading Obamanomics!
If after reading this book, you aren’t calling the president “Showbama” then you’re probably related to him! This book takes the mask off, and it’s NOT pretty.
It explores the list of industries in the incumbent lap: Industrial houses (like GE), Healthcare, Military, Power, Pharma, and of course Finance. The ridiculous amount of lobbying going on in this white house is enough to shame Jack “the troglodyte” Abramoff. Rod Blagojevich was a prescient but small window into the types of dealmaking. It describes the crazy scene as the stimulus (wrapped in keynesian populism) was being prepared with heads of various corporations waiting in WH lobby and lobbyists in another room with the “economics” adviser! No wonder nearly every promise the President stood for in the campaign is abandoned, and no wonder he will handily win re-election: the money is all stitched up by now, wrapped in a populist, strident, colorful, candy wrapper.
I can never watch Obama campaign again without a mildly twisted/contorted look on my face.
It would be a five star review if the book painted broader strokes and wasn’t a bit repetitive, but because it’s *slightly* partisan in tone, and the charges seem cherry-picked, i gave it four stars. Still, every democrat should read this book, at least for the chapter on health reform.
This book, if you let it, will change your ideas about welfare, socialism, and the true challenges facing reform movements like the Tea Parties. Combine this with Kolko’s book, Triumph of Conservatism, and you might actually get getting somewhere.
One of the most tired clichés in American political discourse is that Republicans are shills for Big Business while Democrats are tireless advocates for the Average Person. The healthcare legislation President Obama recently signed into law proves the falsity of that cliché, for the legislation is a federal mandate requiring the Average Person to buy health insurance from – ahem – Big Insurance, one of the larger subsets of Big Business. In other words, Democrats have just done what they and others routinely accuse the Republicans of doing.
The cliché about Republicans is false, then, not because Republicans don’t lobby for Big Business but because Democrats do it too, albeit for the benefit of different businesses. In other words, there is Bushonomics, and now there is Obamanomics. Neither is good for the Average Guy. Both are inherently corrupting of our nation’s politics.
Timothy P. Carney is lobbying editor and columnist for the Washington Examiner, as well as a protégé of the late paleoconservative journalist Robert Novak. He is a political independent with a long libertarian streak and an axe to grind against crony capitalists everywhere. Obamanomics is a muckraking expose of crony capitalism in the Obama administration, written before the president signed the health care legislation into law. One wonders whether a revised edition is in the works. He is rightly critical of Obama, although fair being fair, he points out that many of Obama’s policies are merely continuations of and expansions upon Bush’s policies. TARP anyone?
For me, what is most valuable about the book is not the specific examples of Obamanomics Carney reports on but the strategy and outcomes of crony capitalism in general. These can be applied uniformly to both Bush and Obama administrations, although since Obama is the current president, he’s also the current target of critique.
Carney writes: “Obamanomics is the political strategy of partnering government with the biggest businesses in order to create new regulations, taxes, and subsidies.” He goes on: “The economic law underlying Obamanomics – opaque to most journalists and contrary to conventional wisdom – is this: increased government control centralizes industries and favors the biggest businesses.” Underlying Obamanomics are “Four Laws”:
1. The Inside Game: “During a legislative debate, whichever business has the best lobbyists is most likely to win the most favorable small print.”
2. Overhead Smash: “Regulation adds to overhead, and higher overhead crowds out smaller competitors and prevents startups from entering the industry.”
3. Gumming Up the Works: “Bigger companies are often saddled by inertia, meaning robust competition is a threat. Adopting regulations that stultify the economy is the equivalent of raising the basketball hoop to twenty feet at half-time: it protects the lead of whichever team is ahead.”
4. The Confidence Game: “Government regulation grants an air of legitimacy to businesses, boosting consumer confidence, often beyond what is warranted.”
Alongside these laws are ancillary tactics, such as Making an Offer You Can’t Refuse, “when government requires customers to buy certain products,” and Subsidy Sucking, in which government taxes some to subsidize others.
In the current partisan atmosphere, I’m sure many Republicans will cheer Carney merely because he’s against Obama’s policies, while many Democrats will be against him for the same reason. That’s too bad. Carney’s book, aimed squarely at Obama’s crony capitalism, is a primer in how government favors some businesses over their competitors, at the expense of ordinary citizens. The principles underlying Carney’s critique could be applied with equal force to many of Bush’s policies.
In other words, crony capitalism is bipartisan, even if Obama is currently its regnant practitioner.