Obamanomics: Crony Capitalism Disguised as Progressive Reforms
by Nick GillespieIn his new book Obamanomics: How Barack Obama is Bankrupting You and Enriching His Wall Street Friends, Corporate Lobbyists, and Union Bosses, Timothy P. Carney explains that Barack Obama’s “progressive” rhetoric masks good old-fashioned crony capitalism, in which the favored few and politcally well-connected get all sorts of benefits paid for with public dollars. Whether the area is Wall Street, health care reform, union organizing, or K Street lobbying, the same pattern is everywhere: using the government’s power to distribute goodies and rig markets.
A columnist at the Washington Examiner and a non-partisan reporter, Carney also lays into the Republican Party for its massive contribution to the problem when it wielded power. Carney provides a game plan to take the country back and restore truly free markets that will benefit everyone.
I interviewed Carney for Reason.tv in December; our talk is about 8.30 minutes long. For more videos, check out our YouTube channel here.
Email this to a friend | Print |
Share on Facebook
| Tweet this
| 
Follow Us on Twitter
Subscribe via RSS
Got a Tip?
35 Comments
Crony Capitalism?
CASH FOR CRAP.
The democrats accuse republicans of catering to big business but this administration has been doing the same exact thing. Just look at the SEIU, ACORN, the AARP and the pharmaceutical companies and how they fell in line with the health care bill. Judging by Scott Browns victory it's entirely likely that at least some registered democrats have also noticed this and are not pleased. Heck. Just look how many of Obama's close friends/allies are now on the government payroll as Czars. This is business as usual in Washington. Something Obama promised his supporters he would put an end to. It's no wonder his numbers/political capital are so low.
"…restore truly free markets that will benefit everyone." Yes, for everyone willing to work and deal with their own risk. It is that work and risk that capitalism rewards. Anything else is not true capitalism.
I for one am tired of politicians (mostly Dems, but Reps too) using my hard-earned tax dollars to pay off their political cronies as compensation for support during elections. That's what the "stimulus" was, that's what the funds to ACORN are–political payback for campaign contributions (monetary and in kind). Pay your own damn bills! Don't use my money…I need it to pay my own bills (which unlike Congress, I do regularly).
Good, short & to the point.
The problem isn't that these businesses & unions are doing this, they are trying to make a profit just like any business is, the problem is that we have politicians who are suppose to make sure that there is an even playing field tilting the field in their favor.
Why do I include unions in as a business? Because that is what they are, a business who sells representation as their product, not unlike a law firm but with much fewer regulations.
What a minute…Obama is using our tax dollars to pay back his fat cat contributors, and co-conspirators as a thank you for getting him elected???
That's it…I'm leaving work right now, I'm going home, and I'm dismantling my Obama shrine immediately…! He is now a false god to me…
LOL…That was pretty hard to type. I hope karma doesn't come back to haunt me.
"Obamas progressive rhetoric masks good old-fashioned crony capitalism", while I don't know about "crony capitalism"(I believe a more proper term would be crony socialism), the fact is the emporer's mask is held firmly in place by the fawning msm and his other, various sycophants, as witnessed by a few of our very own blathering trolls ……………. Hanzo
The federal government was not created to hand out other peoples cash. The current theft mechanism de jour is interesting but only a symptom.
As a country we need to quit pretending that the oxymoron of "Forced charity" and it's co-partner "Overarching Regulation" are anything other than outright theft and control, one to buy votes, the other to buy favor.
The only way to stop the handouts is to limit the ability of the Feds to collect revenue, force them to balance the budget and spend it only on the things it was created to do, while forcing the legislative process into and open, honest and transparent environment.
Then we have to keep being citizens instead of the dozing tenants we have been these past years. If it were up to me any politician or businessperson that cut a back room deal would end up in stocks, baskets of rotten fruit and vegetables provided free of charge for passersby.
The mega corporations want to make cash, Obama knows that and uses them to become Tyrant in Chief, the partnership won't last because tyrants don’t like to share.
The last year has been most educational for many Americans who fell for his hype and bs. It is time for Americans to stand up as informed voters and say no to Government Control and waste and the Welfare Nanny Statism policies. BYE BYE Barack Hussein Obama and all of your greedy little playmates. Get your papers ready and immigrate to the EU. We will not allow Progressives to destroy our "One Nation under GOD".
true dat!
Do you honestly believe that power does not corrupt power, every politician that does not have the moral fortitude to humble himself and be a worker for the people will be corrupt. Just look around you at all and I mean ALL the politicians that have been there and are there now. We need moral fortitude and not the morals on a sliding scale, the morals of our founders who believed in GOD.
What did you do? Go to night school? Guys like you and me are supposed to be too stupid to see things like this.
We are supposed to believe whatever our "leaders" tell us.
Remember, they know more than we do.
The short of it. It's an insiders game that we pay for.
ever notice how Obama continues to make his daily speeches at college or university campuses???? speaking to college students, faculty, professors, deans, academics?????? why is that I ask????? simply stated….because he knows they are still young and nieve….and brainwashed by the progressives and marxists professors teaching in our schools the Sal Alinksky scholl of thought……..thus, he gets no pushback…..why doesn't he make these speeches at a Tea Party??? you know, to the taxpayers that fund his out of control spending spree….?????
If, or most likely when the system collapses, the blame will be placed on Capitalism. It is up to us, to know what the truth is, and expose the truth. The truth is that we haven't had a true free market for a VERY long time. The truth is that it is corruption, crony capitalism, and over regulation that will bring down the system. If we cannot stop this, we must expose it.
Anyone remember the “payola” debacle with the American/Canadian music & radio industry. I see the same here but you’ve yet to see him doling out those cheques to the universities, media outlets… unless he has already under some other guise. Bought and paid for.
Obamao's idea of social justice – supporting his friends, cronies and donors.
No, it is crony capitalism. These socialists are all capitalists when it comes to lining their own pockets with our hard-earned cash. It's socialism for the great unwashed and apparently, that's what the self-appointed ruling elite, of which Obamao is one, considers the working class, aka middle class.
When I was a kid in school, a long time ago I admit, that was called Nazism or Fascism. Has something changed? Do those words no longer mean what I was taught they meant?
……And like lawyers, bleed their customers into insolvancy.
He lies with such practiced ease. I'm 4 score and 11 and I've never seen anyone as corrupt.
No to impreachment! We'd get Joey Biden and then whoever he wants as VP. (He could want Al Gore)
Watched obamao talking to the people in Ohio, he said it was hard to be in washington always running into lobbyists and special interest groups. like it isn't him paying off his buddies. it was somebody else. he still believes we will believe his lies. OBAMA YOU ARE A LIAR!!!!!
So wait, Obama is a Communist and a Capitalist???
Well, guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.
In my eyes, there's nothing capitalistic about these freaks. True Capitalists believe in the Free-enterprise system, while socialists do not. The BHO's of the world regulate and change the rules as they go along in order to line their cronies pockets, while still maintaining a hardcore socialist or even marxist agenda. 
……………………..Hanzo
Chicago politics at its worst…..
I have watched Barack Hussein Obama for the last year. I am convinced that in my life (5 decades) there has never been a more corrupt person sitting as President. The special intrest groups and payoff in jobs, government jobs and outright capital gifts has never been higher. This man deserves to be prosecuted for theft under RICO. Obama has elevated government corruption to the highest level ever. The only thing we can do is to change this nasty, greedy adolescent behavior is to change his playmates. Our only way to do that is to find serious grown up conservatives to clip his wings in November. No matter how much he moves to the center (which he will pay lip service to but never really accomplish) we have been burned and will need to remove him and his entire gang in 2012. It will take years and years to ferret out his underlings placed all through our government.
Ahhh. the gilded age of politics is alive and well… So much for ending "politics as usual." How anyone could've fallen for this empty and recycled rhetoric in the first place is beyond me.
AMERICA: WE HAVE TO DEMAND IMPEACHMENT PROCEEDINGS BEGIN AFTER THE 2010 ELECTIONS!
.
Obama gave special tax credits for Oprah's food bill.
.
I am no fan of Barry Soweto, but lets make one thing clear here, lobbyists have been buying, and lawmakers have been selling their votes long before Comrade Obama.
Politicians on both side of the aisle need to start voting for the people, if they don't, its quite simple, vote their no good asses out.
When you introduce laws that mandate a public behavior it becomes fascism in my book.
Progressive politics as Crony Capitalism is right in the ten ring.
Once you start understanding that the Soviet Communists at the very innermost core of the Party was an apolitical Mafia, then you can begin to understand the onion layer ideology of political crime. The outer layers play to the masses, but go down enough layers and what you have at the very center is a criminal enterprise. Which intentionally masquerades as a politics so they can rob, steal and corrupt not just victims, but entire nations. And under the imprimatur of Law. They strive to control the military and the courts and the press so they can shape opinion, police their competition and crush their enemies.
The October Revolution, despite whatever you think you know of it, was a criminal act of a dedicated gang intent on (a) taking over an entire nation to loot; (b) bury themselves inside a hive of plausible deniability; (c) surround themselves with all the accepted standards of nation-state relations and (d) create borders and captured states that an enemy would have to fight through to unseat them.
Progressives here are the same.
A criminal enterprise, a mafia, a gang of ruthless thieves. No conscience, no morals, no standards other than win at any cost regardless of casualties or damage.
Take note of the banking debacle if you don’t believe me. How many trillions has Barney Frank GIVEN to US financial institutions he’s supposed to be overseeing? You don’t do that to your political enemies.
It’s always about the money.
Always.
Right on the mark. Corruption for the sake of the children.
Websites you should visit…
[...]below you’ll find the link to some sites that we think you should visit[...]……
You must be logged in to post a comment.