Reflections From a Murky Pond

Back in the lead up to the 2008 elections Obama was all about spreading the wealth. Amid the plethora of not-quite-promises that Obama jabbered during that campaign, that one message was said clearly and openly. Spread the wealth. And this bit of Socialist rhetoric helped carry him into the White House.

Campaign Obama – 2008 v. 2012

Once installed in office, Obama had to start his reelection campaign – after all, keeping his job as long as possible is always Job #1. This presented a problem for the Campaigner-in-Chief; how do you redistribute wealth, after you’ve gone to such great lengths to convince your followers that it’s a declining and failing resource?

Fortunately for Obama, his handlers were up to the challenge. They managed to shift their boy’s message from, “Make Them Pay” to “Make Them Hurt Too” – and spreading poverty is so much easier than spreading wealth anyway. 😉

The Movement Is Off The Ground

Obama, in an increasingly desperate bid to keep his job, has jumped on the slackers of the Occupy Wall St.’s bandwagon now that his handlers have convinced him that the movement is off the ground.

Of course Obama and his handlers forgot to check to see if “off the ground” really meant “up on blocks” before trying to harness the neo-Socialist class warfare of these rabble.

That’s the problem with old saying like, “jump on the bandwagon.” They often don’t workout so well in reality. Face it, Obama and his coterie would “hitch their wagon to a star” only to have it implode into a brown dwarf. 😆

Obama, his shuffling and stumbling zombie cultists, and his handlers have one, singular quandary – who can they get to pay for their entitlement society after they’ve destroyed and/or driven away the wealthy and the productive in America?

Who’s Going To Pick Up The Tab?

After the Obama Regime, in order to placate the unwashed, unworthy parasites who make up the bulk of America’s domestic enemies, has eaten the rich, who’s going to be left to pick up the tab for his feast?

If one is wiling to look at America’s tax base and tax code, it’s easy to see that it’s shear folly to think that redistributing that wealth downwards will work at all.

On the other hand, if one looks at it as Obama’s last, best hope for reelection, it’s a meal the boy is probably ready to gobble down and not worry about the cost to our nation and our children’s future, or who’s going to have to pay for it.

As is quite usual, Obama refuses to accept any responsibility for his failures and the geopolitical and economic wreckage that they’ve exacerbated. Speaking at Orlando, FL’s WESH anchor Jim Payne, Obama pontificated:

This is a great country that had gotten a little soft, and we didn’t have that same competitive edge that we needed over the last couple of decades.

Much like his earlier jabbering about being an American, the boy’s latest screed is nothing but cynical and self-serving twisting, warping, and perverting of the truth to shift the blame for America’s predicament onto someone – anyone’s – else’s shoulders.

Who Can I Blame For This? It Can’t Be My Fault!

Yes, it’s sadly true; America got much more than a little soft over at least the last half-century. It just didn’t get soft for the reasons or in the manner which Obama alluded to and implied.

The growing cancerous weakness within the belly of America came from Liberalism and the neo- and/or quasi-Socialist policies it’s followers gained the power to enact the American people.

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Obama and his coterie in the White House have finally submitted their initial draft of the American Jobs Act, though it doesn’t yet appear to have been formally introduced to Congress.

By any measure this is a late effort but, as usual for the Obama Regime, it’s not a better late than never situation – except possibly in the context of Obama keeping and his handlers keeping his own job for a few more years.

It’s largely (70% of it)  the buying of votes and retreaded Liberal wealth redistribution ideas.

Simply put, it’s $447 billion of up front spending allocations to be supposedly paid for over the course of a decade by tax increases, including taxing the carried interest, or profits-based compensation, of private equity managers, real estate investors, and venture capitalists as ordinary income, instead of more lightly taxed capital gains.

This is not going to spur business or employment. It will likely have quite the opposite effect due to what Carried Interest is and how it works.

Carried Interest:

A share of any profits that the general partners of private equity and hedge funds receive as compensation, despite not contributing any initial funds. This method of compensation seeks to motivate the general partner (fund manager) to work toward improving the fund’s performance.

Traditionally, the amount of carried interest comes out to around 20-25% of the fund’s annual profit. While all funds tend to have a small management fee, the management fee is meant to only cover the costs of managing the fund, with the exception of compensating the fund manager.

Carried interest is meant to serve as the primary source of income for the general partner. However, the general partner must ensure that all the initial capital that the limited partners contribute is returned along with some previously agreed upon rate of return.

What happens is that people running the fund, called the General Partners charge the rest of the funds’ investors, the Limited Partners a combination of maintenance fees and profit sharing. This is usually referred to as “2/20,” signifying fees of 2% of the funds’ assets and 20% of the funds’ returns above an agreed upon amount known as the “hurdle rate.” That 20% is what is the Carried Interest, meaning the General Partners’ carried or ongoing financial involvement in the fund.

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