{"id":1598,"date":"2009-09-14T00:43:34","date_gmt":"2009-09-14T04:43:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/?p=1598"},"modified":"2009-09-14T00:43:34","modified_gmt":"2009-09-14T04:43:34","slug":"republican-plot-to-make-obama-look-like-a-socialist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2009\/09\/14\/republican-plot-to-make-obama-look-like-a-socialist\/","title":{"rendered":"Republican Plot to Make Obama Look Like a Socialist"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dictionary: Socialism<\/em>–Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy.<\/p>\n

Yesterday’s\u00a0New York Times<\/a>: “the government is the nation\u2019s biggest lender, insurer, automaker and guarantor against risk for investors large and small. … government spending accounts for a bigger share of the nation\u2019s economy \u2014 26 percent \u2014 than at any time since World War II. The government is financing 9 out of 10 new mortgages in the United States. … To Mr. Obama\u2019s critics, thousands of whom took to the streets of Washington this weekend to protest a new era of big government, all these efforts are part of a plan to dismantle free-market capitalism.”<\/p>\n

Who decided to print trillions of dollars and give them to banks? The Bush Administration. Who decided to print hundreds of billions of dollars and give them to AIG? The Bush Administration. Who decided not to tell General Motors and Chrysler to work out their problems in bankruptcy court like any other company not smart enough to recognize the implications of pension and health care guarantees (see While America Aged<\/a><\/em>)? The Bush Administration started with the Detroit bailout.<\/p>\n

A theory consistent with the facts is that King Bush II knew that the next president would be a Democrat, due to the endless depressing Iraq\/Afghanistan war. He therefore\u00a0intentionally wrecked the economy and then took over much of it in order to make the next administration\u00a0look like socialists.<\/p>\n

Going by the numbers and facts, an economic historian would have little choice but to classify the U.S. circa 2009 as a socialist nation. Government at all levels spends a greater percentage of GDP than does China’s (source<\/a>), for example, and the government either directly owns or assumes financial risks for a lot of our largest enterprises. How did we get here? It was a Republican plot to make Obama look like a socialist, by the clever strategy of converting the U.S. into a fully socialist economy prior to January 20, 2009.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dictionary: Socialism–Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nRepublican Plot to Make Obama Look Like a Socialist - Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2009\/09\/14\/republican-plot-to-make-obama-look-like-a-socialist\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Republican Plot to Make Obama Look Like a Socialist - 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