Thursday, May 14, 2009

Got Metaphor?

Bloomberg carries this article:

President Barack Obama, calling current deficit spending “unsustainable,” warned of skyrocketing interest rates for consumers if the U.S. continues to finance government by borrowing from other countries.
“We can’t keep on just borrowing from China,” Obama said at a town-hall meeting in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, outside Albuquerque. “We have to pay interest on that debt, and that means we are mortgaging our children’s future with more and more debt.”
Holders of U.S. debt will eventually “get tired” of buying it, causing interest rates on everything from auto loans to home mortgages to increase, Obama said. “It will have a dampening effect on our economy.”

I'm struggling to think of an apt metaphor here. Like a wife beater giving a lecture on the importance of mutual respect, an unrepentant junky burglar leading a DARE brainwashing session, an embezzler harping on accuracy in accounting. Is this a case of Dr. Strangelove Syndrome? Does this man not remember signing away $9.3 trillion for the next decade in his gotta do it right away can't stop to debate pass it right now fervor?

These reporters are going to share in the catastrophe of this spending. It eludes me why they still have shoes on their feet, when, as the last disaster to fill the Oval Office discovered, shoes make such a great method of instantly expressing disapproval during a president's speech. In a sane, rational, honest world, Barack couldn't stand up there without being pelted by every available loose object at hand.

The president pledged to work with Congress to shore up entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare and said he was confident that the House and Senate would pass health-care overhaul bills by August.

Exactly how are they going to "shore up" these programs? Exactly how are they going to fund the "health-care overhaul bills"? More deficit spending!

Wow. Just, wow.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

We wouldnt be in this mess if it wasnt for capitalism, Obama is fixing your guys mistakes

Somoeon should do you a favor and turn off Rush so you can think for yourself

Paul Trent said...

This is Propaganda 101: create a problem and then repeatedly blame your enemies for causing it (or, in this case, pretend you had nothing to do with the problem). There will be no end to the number of people who rally to your side and forget you caused the problem in the first place.

It doesn't hurt to have media lapdogs.

Elliot said...

Anonymous:We wouldnt be in this mess if it wasnt for capitalism, Since when does the US government allow free-market capitalism? There wouldn't be any sub-prime mortgages without Democrats jamming them down the throats of lenders. No sub-primes, no collapse.

Democrats and "moderate" Republicans love to blame "deregulation" and "capitalism" for failures they cause. The California electricity crisis of 2000-2001 was a direct result of price caps on consumer usage (i.e., anti-free market interference by government, in direct defiance of fundamental laws of supply and demand), while leaving supplier prices uncapped. But the clever Democrats blamed it on "deregulation" as a cynical ploy. It worked, as the "common wisdom" was that they were right, when all evidence showed they were 180 degrees wrong.

Obama is fixing your guys mistakes
Somoeon should do you a favor and turn off Rush so you can think for yourself
I don't vote. Nor do I support any political parties or candidates. My individualist views are in conflict with Limbaugh's conservative views. Also, he's not even a worthy proponent of conservatism, as he engages in logical fallacies on a regular basis.

Layne P said...

How about an architect who designs an unstable building giving a lecture on design principles after construction has begun?

Our economy is going to do exactly what he predicts and it will be his and the Democrats' faults.

I predict that they will blame it on capitalism, a la Mr. Anonymous above.