Obama and Measuring and Improving the Economy
by Dean Michael Gores
My take on Obama is that his dream is to make everyone equally wealthy-- while disregarding how this will impact productivity and the health and life of US citizens. The impact will be severely negative, exactly to the degree that spends our wealth away in his expensive "change" policies. Never mind the claims of "economists" and government figures saying that the economy will "turn around in a year or two." Because Obama is doing the exact opposite of what he should be doing to improve the economy.
I think he will get away with executing his dream because so few people seem to have a clue about how the economy works. People seem to think that money rapidly switching hands is a good measure of the economy doing well. Or that lots of money being spent, whether by private individuals who earned the money through trading produced values, or the government creating money through inflation and debt, is a good measure of the economy doing well.
I'd argue that the best measure of a good economy is not the amount of money spent. Instead it is the quantity of human life furthering values produced divided by the cost of living. This is the most practical, because it directly gives you an idea of how successful people are living, or in some cases how unsuccessful. Practical, because I'm focusing on human life, when and how people die, and how healthy they are through their life... which is important... right? Most important to me anyway.
For example, the micro economy of a family is the total value they produce and trade for money in the free market after taxes (their income), divided by all the money they spend on things that further their lives, like food, shelter, water, medical, security, education, etc. The higher the income and lower the expenditures the better a family's micro economy is doing. If a family barely creates enough values to meet their expenses, then they are doing OK. If a family is taking home double the values they are consuming, they they are doing considerably better. The double income family could overcome significant future setbacks, while the first would fall apart.
The easiest way to take this economic wellness measurement for a nation's economy is to take the gross domestic product and divide by the consumer price index. This will give you a comparable number to compare two different economies or an economy over time. The higher the resulting number of GDP/CPI, the more values can be spent on extra things. Extra things like charity, investing in technological research, technological improvements, increasing company size and throughput. Which results in a nation with exponentially increasing human-life-sustaining,furthering,and-improving wealth.
The question on President Obama's mind shouldn't be "Who is failing that needs help?". It should be "How can I maximize US citizen's motivation to be productive?" Because, after all, it is not wasting resources rewarding failure that improves the economy. Increasing production and reducing consumption of values improves the economy. Obama's "change" has been increasing the the consumption of productive American's values through inflation, taxation, and government debt spent on the unproductive and the undeserved. He is decreasing our nation's take-home money and increasing our nation's consumption of life sustaining values.
It should be obvious by now that Obama is doing the exact opposite of what he should be doing-- if his goal was to improve the economy. Instead, as I stated, "My take on Obama is that his dream is to make everyone equally wealthy-- while disregarding how this will impact productivity and the health and life of US citizens."
We should be increasing our economic freedom and decreasing taxes and government intervention: becoming more Capitalist. We should not be decreasing our economic freedom and increasing taxes and government intervention: becoming more Socialist. The government of Singapore spends about 15% of it's citizen's GDP. Before Obama, government spending in the US was 37% of the GDP. (http://www.heritage.org/Index) Think of how much better off our economy would be if businesses and families had 22% more money to bring home and invest/spend on their hearts desires. How rapidly is Obama consuming our values?
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