It’s easy to blame technology. After all, why should teachers actual teach what students can use modern technology to do for them instead?

But They Didn’t Teach Us That In Ethnomathematics!

I don’t think it’s fair to blame technology though since the average child in America could recite chapter and verse of the Liberals’ politically correct versions of history and sociology how America was wrong and how the country was based upon the evils of: racism, xenophobia, homophobia, religion, nationalism, and capitalism.

Oh yes! Religion (except for Islam post 9/11), nationalism, and capitalism are taught as “evils” in the modern (re)education camps the Liberals demand we call schools.

That same child could also likely parrot his “teachers’” chimera that teaching math and science and testing on those subjects is racist because it can’t take into account the differences in cultural backgrounds of non-White students. He or she could also offer strikingly similar rationalizations as why all the “teaching” was done to the lowest common denominators in his or her class.

No. Technology may be an enabler in this educational failure but it’s not the cause. The cause is the Liberals’ desire to indoctrinate children into their anti-American ideology.

This is not surprising since American businesses and corporation are forced to drag the huge, dead weight of government intervention along with them down that road.

The Road To Recovery

One can argue that any specific piece of government intervention into the market is necessary. One cannot, however, rationally dispute that almost all forms of government regulation have a chilling effect upon the economy. One also cannot rationally argue that these prior restraints upon trade have a disproportionate negative effect during times of economic crisis such as America now finds itself in.

To make matters worse, most occurrences of government intervention into the private sphere are politically motivated and the laws, regulations, and “fixes” are neither straightforward or equitable. They are instead laden with handouts to the politicians’ backers and supporters.

It comes down to one’s priorities. If one wants the economy to recover more quickly and robustly, one has to free it from the shackles of government intervention. If one wants to favor other interests or to have a slower growing, managed economy – paying the price in the loss of “booms” in order to avoid “busts” – one can continue on in the manner of the current regime.

Wheeeeeeee!

I don’t think that Obama’s selling to the American people though. He’s spent too much time over the last three years selling them down the river – the Yangtze river that is.

It seems that back in September 2011, the Obama-appointed heads of General Motors signed an agreement with the Chinese government to effectively move all future electric vehicle (EV) development to China. Primary production of such vehicles will also likely move to China.

America’s Liar-in-Chief, Obama strikes again.

But then almost all of these “green jobs” that Obama has touted and attacked traditional American jobs and practices over have gone to foreigners so GM’s moving their electric powertrain development to China shouldn’t come as a surprise despite Obama giving them a massive handout from the taxpayers’ coffers.

Throughout it all Obama’s continued response is to blame everyone and anyone except himself, with special emphasis on any who are productive, successful…and White.

It’s Been Three Years

At what point will Obama own up to his failure? At what point will he, if ever, reject the sad myth of his being too Black to fail and accept responsibility for what he’s done and so often over the last three years failed to do?

My guess would be sometime after the boy is dead and brought up for judgement, not before.

In point of fact, much of what Obama has either done or shilled for via the bully pulpit has had a chilling effect upon America’s economy.

There has been one significant uptick though, one segment of the economy that has responded positively to the Obama regime. Nationwide, firearms and ammunition sales have soared since Obama was installed as POTUS and that recovery shows no signs of slowing.

Obama’s Economic Boom

Indeed, 2011 Christmas firearm sales were record breaking, and the previous records weren’t that old.

With a few days left in December, the FBI reports the number of background checks has already topped the previous one-month record — set only in November — of 1,534,414 inquiries by gun dealers to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System also known as NICS. Almost half a million checks were done in just the last six days before Christmas.

Two days before Christmas, NICS ran 102,222 background checks, which was the second-busiest day in history. The one-day record was set this year on Black Friday, the big shopping day following Thanksgiving, with 129,166 searches. By comparison, the previous one-day high was set November 28, 2008, when gun dealers made slightly less than 98,000 requests for background searches.

In a larger context, the record for firearm purchases in a single year was set 2010, when the FBI reported that approximately 14.4 million background checks were requested. In 2011 that figure topped 16 million, an estimated 10% jump sales.

NOTE: FBI background searches aren’t the same thing as firearms sales. They can’t be used to accurately track multiple firearm purchases by the same individuals at the same time – i.e., if I buy 10 AR-15′s, 2 Mossberg 500′s, and a HK USP45 (w/o suppressor) as one purchase it would generate only one FBI background search.

So it seems that Obama’s economic boom is vastly ironic and probably not one that he’s comfortable with.

Still, upon occasion, his stupidity – though not his mendacity – is shocking. Such is the case in his recent comparison of job creators with unicorns.

It beggars the mind to expect Americans to take Reid seriously – except as a clear and present danger to America – when he jabbers such inanities that are so easy to refute and debunk.

Millionaire job creators are like unicorns. They’re impossible to find, and they don’t exist.

Only a tiny fraction of people making more than a million dollars, probably less than 1%, are small business owners. And only a tiny fraction of that tiny fraction are traditional job creators.

Most of these businesses are hedge fund managers or wealthy lawyers. They don’t do much hiring and they don’t need tax breaks.

The pathetic Leftists of NPR, ever eager collaborators with any and all of America’s enemies, was quick to attempt to support Reid’s stupidity.

We wanted to talk to business owners who would be affected. So, NPR requested help from numerous Republican congressional offices, including House and Senate leadership. They were unable to produce a single millionaire job creator for us to interview.

So we went to the business groups that have been lobbying against the surtax. Again, three days after putting in a request, none of them was able to find someone for us to talk to.

Of course Americans can expect nothing else from NPR; they’re devoted to being a 5th Column and to the destruction of America.

Really! Creatures like those controlling NPR were some of the few valid reasons for the original provisions in Section 1021 & 1022 of NDAA 2012.

It’s not surprising at all that NPR couldn’t find an American who talk to them, especially an American who is part of the demographic currently targeted for harm by the Liberals. Americans, after all, do not make a habit of speaking with the enemy. And it’s equally unsurprising that NPR would spin such a refusal to speak to them into “supporting evidence” for Reid’s spurious an specious attack.

It did not, however, take long for Americans to refute and debunk Reid and NPR. All it took was for a contributor to Forbes, Paul Roderick Gregory, to make a few simple inquiries with the IRS and then to put thing together.

What Professor Gregory discovered is that are, in fact, unicorns prancing around – or, at least, millionaire job creators.

This is simply because it’s delusional to believe that the 236,765 millionaire or above taxpayers, who earn an aggregate taxable income of $623 billion per annum are overwhelmingly hedge fund managers or wealthy lawyers and that they provide few, if any, jobs for their fellow Americans.

 I do not know what Harry means when he says “a tiny fraction of a tiny fraction.” If we let 5 percent represent Harry’s “tiny fraction,” we are left with 118 businesses owners who earn a million or more and create jobs. Yes, they are only slightly less rare than unicorns, if Harry is to be believed.

Is it even in the same timezone as logical to believe that only 118 out 236,765 millionaires create jobs? Even doubling it to 10% – tiny is, after all, relative – would only give us 236.

You’d really think that the Senator from Nevada would know not to draw to an inside straight or, at least, how to bluff. Then again, he probably trusts the lamestream media, like NPR, to either actively support his lies or stay quiet about them.

This explains a great deal of their behavior and also explains the diffuse and disjointed nature of their surface motivation. It especially explains their pathological need to “Occupy” as opposed to engaging in normal, legal protests.

It makes a certain sad and pathetic sense that the the rank-and-file occupiers, who feel isolated in their existences, and seemingly lack basic community ties such as those provided by participation in clubs, churches, and strong families, would sublimate their loss, longing, and despondency into the desire to carve out a “new home” for themselves and to surround themselves with others of their sort as some sort of support group.

Before discounting this or claiming the source, The Frontier Lab, is tainted simply read the following excerpt from December 18, 2011 statement from Occupy Wall St.’s ”Organizational” website:

It hurts to be holding GA’s here in an empty park. It hurts to stand here in the cold, fighting for nothing. I do not mean that we don’t stand for principles.

I mean that we don’t have a physical home.

There is nothing here. There are no structures. There is no sign of our community. There is no life. Yes, we are here. But we have become tourists. We visit the park, we do not occupy it.

– Christina Daniel
Buy-Out Buy-In – Proposal for GA

That certainly seems to bear out or, at least, lend weight to the “Occupational Therapy” hypothesis about the real motivations of the rabble in OWS.

The Frontier Lab report describes these rank-and-file Occupiers as “Communitarians.”

A Communitarian remarked that, upon waking each morning in the Tent City, he was struck by an overwhelming feeling of being part of a family. When queried about their formal religiosity, this segment indicated that they had grown up in largely non-religious households. One interview subject indicated that while he had grown up in a religious family, he had felt estranged due to his sexual orientation.

The Communitarians may have expressed their satisfaction at being “proactive” to correct injustices, but the value behind this satisfaction is “Security.” Security to Communitarians means reasserting some control over their futures. The rocky job market and economic outlook mean that they feel more adrift and unsure of their life plans, but for them the Occupy protests serve to translate malaise and fear into action, with a result that is both calming and empowering.

They then applied Means-Ends Theory and Laddering to map from concrete behaviors (Attributes) to emotional feedback (Consequences) to underlying values and/or beliefs (Values).

 

Means-Ends Theory: Attributes → Consequences → Values
 

When The Frontier Lab interviewed a series of high intensity occupiers in New York and Chicago they applied this Means-Ends Theory to derive insights into the occupiers’ psyches and motivations.

It boils down to the idea that the average slacker in OWS is desperately in needs of community, fellowship, and self-validation and is seeking these things in the now-defunct OWS camps. In other words, it’s “Occupational Therapy” for them.

It seems to me that latter possibility is far more likely true than the former.

How Is The Economy Broken?

There’s a plethora of ways that all levels of the US economy have been broken for many years.

• Fiat currency.  Our money is solely backed by the “The full faith and credit of the United States Government.” Yeah, it seems that faith in the US Govt.’s credit is waning.
• From individuals to the federal government we’ve been living beyond our means for decades. We’ve become a culture of debt.
• We’ve mistaken money for wealth. Complex financial vehicles have replaced goods as the basis for America’s economy but they’re fictions based upon ether. What does America still produce?

These three longstanding, fundamental flaws in America’s economy are just a sampling of what’s been wrong for a long time. There are many more and even just the three above have myriad examples and far ranging negative effects.

Extending and deepening these “middle class tax cuts” wasn’t even a particularly contentious issue. The congressional Republicans quickly agreed that not extending these cuts was economically contraindicated at this exact time.

So the GOP-led House drafted a bill to extend the payroll tax breaks, additional limited unemployment benefits, and a continuation of full payments to doctors who treat Medicare patients – essentially everything that Obama had claimed he wanted and that the middle class needed.

Obama’s , his handlers’, and his sycophants’ response was to have a tantrum because funding for the measure did not come from taking further wealth away from higher income Americans. It was solely funded through a freeze on spending for federal salaries.

This debate should not be about scoring political points. This debate should be about cutting taxes for the middle class.

If the President were presented with H.R. 3630, he would veto the bill.

– Executive Office Of The President
Office Of Management And Budget
Statement Of Administration Policy

It seems that the extension of the payroll tax cuts for the middle class are only vital and necessary if they’re paid for by increasing the amount of money taken from wealthier Americans and that wealth redistribution is the avowed administrative policy of the Obama Regime.