Words mean things...

Can Obama Be Called an Economic Fascist?
by Jerry Doyle (more by this author)
Posted 05/04/2009 ET
It is dangerous in this day and age to use the word “fascism” lightly. Liberals sling around the term “fascism” without regard to its meeting -- for the left, “fascism” applies to everything from religious social perspectives to conservative tax cut prescriptions. But economic fascism has a precise, defined meaning. And Barack Obama’s economic policy fulfills that meaning in every conceivable way.Economic fascism can be defined as government control over the four P’s: Product, Price, Profit Margin, and People. When the government controls the product created by the market, when it controls the price structure for product and company securities, when it controls how much profit particular companies can make, and when it controls the people who are hired and fired, economic freedom has been banished, and economic fascism reigns supreme.And economic fascism reigns supreme in Barack Obama’s America. Just look at the recent government handling of Chrysler. In a series of press conferences this week announcing Chrysler’s bankruptcy, Obama hit on all of the four P’s. First, Obama stated that Chrysler’s product had to be revamped -- and that he knew how best to do it. “For too long,” Obama said, “Chrysler moved too slowly to adapt to the future, designing and building cars that were less popular, less reliable, and less fuel efficient than foreign competitors. That’s part of what has brought us to a point where they sought taxpayer assistance.” It’s easy for Obama to criticize Chrysler -- he’s never run so much as a lemonade stand. He’s never had to produce a product for the market. And his ideas are routinely foolish: his first brilliant automotive move was touting the GM/Segway two-wheel idiotmobile, designed to navigate through traffic.And yet Obama wants control of the car industry. “I'm not an auto engineer,” Obama admitted on Wednesday. “I don't know how to create an affordable, well-designed plug-in hybrid. But I know that, if the Japanese can design an affordable, well-designed hybrid, then, doggone it, the American people should be able to do the same. So my job is to ask the auto industry: Why is it you guys can't do this?” Why is it his job to ask that question? Shouldn’t the market be asking that question? Not in an economically fascist state, where the government controls the product.Second, Obama announced that he would be setting prices on senior debt. Obama’s proposed plan for Chrysler involved destroying senior debtholders, paying them a whopping $0.33 on the dollar for their loans. When the senior debtholders refused to abide by such a plan, Obama excluded them from the Chrysler bankruptcy negotiations altogether, then labeled them “speculators” and blamed them for Chrysler’s downfall -- all the while kowtowing to the interests of four large banks (Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and Morgan Stanley) that own 70 percent of Chryslers debt. All of them have taken government bailout cash. The lenders who have not taken government cash, by contrast, were left out in the cold. “We have been forced to communicate through an obviously conflicted intermediary: a group of banks that have received billions of TARP funds," the lenders wrote in a press release. “In its earnest effort to ensure the survival of Chrysler and the well-being of the company's employees, the government has risked overturning the rule of law.” There is no risk of overturning the rule of law -- the rule of law has already been overturned. And Obama celebrates the death of the rule of law, dancing on the corpses of the “speculators.” The “speculators,” announced Obama “were hoping that everybody else would make sacrifices and they would have to make none … I don’t stand with them. I stand with Chrysler’s employees, and their families and communities.” Posing as a populist, Obama undermined the very basis of free enterprise in this country: the power of investors to lend money at return. Instead, he says he stands with employees, families, and communities -- all of whom would be bankrupt without the power of private investment. Preaching economic fascism in the guise of warfare on “speculators” -- this is how freedom dies.Third, Obama stated that he would henceforth control the profit margin for Chrysler. He did this by putting the unions in control of Chrysler -- the new majority owner of Chrysler is the union retiree health fund, which has a 55 percent stake in the new company. And yet Obama assures us that the unions have made “great sacrifices.” The unions have made great sacrifices in the same way Agamemnon made great sacrifices. Agamemnon sacrificed Iphigenia for his own ends; the unions have sacrificed the America auto industry for their own ends. Meanwhile, Obama will set profit margins for auto executives in the same way he unilaterally set them for Wall Street. After all, Obama stands for the “employees,” not for the bosses. Where bosses used to employ the employees, the government will now do the job. Fourth, and finally, Obama has decided that the government shall control the people who are hired and fired at America’s largest companies. After defenestrating the head of GM, Rick Wagoner, Obama forced out the head of Chrysler, Robert Nardelli. He then stacked the nine member board of the company with four government picks, three Fiat picks, one union pick, and one Canadian pick. Chrysler is now a wholly owned subsidiary of the federal government. And the same President who urged us to “buy American” in his Thursday speech handed over the levers of power to an Italian car company, Fiat.We are living in momentous times. There are many who question whether American capitalism will survive Obama. The verdict is in. It will not. It has not. We are already living under the rule of economic fascism. The jackboots are already in charge of Washington D.C. Obama’s dictatorial command and control of the economy spell disaster for our principles and our prosperity.