Well, the G20 had another meeting and it was great. Yes, it only cost Canadian taxpayers about $1 billion for security for world leaders to talk about fiscal responsibility.
Anyway, President Obama was there and he said something that tripped my “Marxism” alarm:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: A strong and durable recovery also requires countries not having an undue advantage…. I think we all have the same interest, and that is the United States can compete with anybody as long we’ve got an even playing field.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
An even playing field with no undue advantages — sure, that sounds so cute and fair and everything, but before we break out in chants for equality, let’s talk about the logistics of that. Whether you disagree or not, how would you even go about doing that? And what would happen to the average American?
Remember, the president thinks it’s better when you spread the wealth around. He doesn’t believe that’s only true for America, he also believes it’s true globally.
Let’s take a look at average salaries from around the world:
• Switzerland: $55,510
• United States: $47,930
• Germany: $42,710
• Greece: $28,400
• Russia: $9,660
• Mexico: $9,990
• Venezuela: $9,230
• Brazil: $7,300
• China: $2,940
• Bolivia: $1,460
• India: $1,040
• Haiti: $975
• Kenya: $730
• Cambodia: $640
• Bangladesh: $520
Look at all the income inequality around the planet. It’s horrible, isn’t it? So how can you even this out? Well, you can’t take anything from the bottom — that would wipe them out. You have to start at the high spots — like the wealth in the United States. And not just Bill Gates’ wealth — your wealth. After all, the average salary in the United States is $47,930. And the average salary in Kenya is $730.
Whoa! That’s an “undue advantage” and not very equal or fair. We’re going to have to even things out a little bit. Get the bulldozer out and start plowing ahead. As your wealth tumbles down, it will fill in the gaps in places like Brazil, India, Venezuela, Cambodia.
And here’s the inconvenient truth about leveling the playing field that the left hopes you don’t realize: Your standard of living must come down in order in order to level the playing field. And not just the rich: Everyone’s standard must come down.
Remember when Obama’s science “czar,” John Holdren, advocated the “de-development” of the United States?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN HOLDEN, WHITE HOUSE DIRECTOR OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY: I think ultimately, the rate of growth of material consumption is going to have to come down and there’s going to have to be a degree of redistribution of how much we consume in terms of energy and material resources in order to leave room for people who are poor to become more prosperous.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
So, when all is said and done and this president and the radicals around him have successfully “de-developed” America to make the world equal, the rest of the world will not have been lifted up, we will have been dragged down.
Imagine America, what your life will be like when everyone in the world makes $14,602.
And that’s what the M.O. of this administration has been from the get go: Spreading things out, making everyone equal. It’s what Obama told Joe the Plumber. He said the Constitution isn’t “redistributive” enough. The New York Times even described how health care reform attacked “wealth inequality” — wait, wasn’t it about health? It’s the same with cap-and-trade. What was the only thing that came out of Copenhagen? Rich countries giving poor countries money. Problem solved! I can feel the Earth healing even as we speak.
This is Marxism, pure and simple.
You remember Al Gore’s hockey stick chart, right? It’s the chart that help move national consensus to actually believe the global warming hoax. Seriously, America, if you are that stupid to think because a guy gets in a scissor lift that means his chart is the real deal, then I have another hockey stick chart to show you.
My chart goes all the way back to 5000 B.C. It’s world per capita GDP. Notice that it stays relatively flat until about the 1800s and then — whoa! It takes off like a hockey stick. I wonder what was going on around 1800 that would cause this sudden jump in wealth? Hmm, I can’t think of anything. Was that when Pets.com was invented or the Segway? It was either that or, I don’t know, America and the free market arrived.
And the track record of the free market is clear: It works. And we have this hockey stick chart to prove it. Although we haven’t fully implemented the free market since progressives started growing government about 100 years ago, we are still more free than most other nations. Between 1974 and 2004 households earning less than $75,000 a year decreased by 10.1 percent, while those earning more than $75,000 increased by about the same amount.
Translation: More people are earning more money.
But what do Barack Obama and the progressives want to do? Punish that success. America, you’ve gone and got a little greedy there. Look the globe: This guy here in Cambodia is making a dollar. Time to be a good global citizen and fork it over.
They want to drag you back.
Understand one thing: Historically, the norm is poverty. The exception is prosperity. Now why would you want to hold that back? But this happens every time there is a financial crisis: Progressives call for more government taxes and more government spending.
Barack Obama is out there yelling at Germany and others in the EU, telling them they need to spend more. But political support for big government spending is dead. Socialist parties in almost every election have lost to conservatives and even liberals. In Europe they are actually cutting entitlements, raising retirement ages — and Obama is asking them to spend more?
Tim Geithner told the G20 to boost spending for as long as necessary to counter a severe financial crisis. George Soros told Germany to spend more or else it risked triggering a deflationary spiral and may ultimately endanger the European Union as a whole. The Europeans declared the welfare state dead. The Royal Bank of Scotland is now advising its clients to prepare for monster money printing by the Federal Reserve.
But it’s the same story over and over throughout history. The socialist advisers of FDR said the same thing. Henry Morgenthau, Jr. — FDR’s secretary of the treasury, good friend and key figure in designing the New Deal — appeared before the House Ways and Means committee in 1939 and said:
“We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong… somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat…. I say after eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started… and an enormous debt to boot.”
The key sentence here is: “I want to see this country prosperous.” That’s the difference between then and now: These days the global elites and this administration want to see the wealth spread and they also want to devolve the country. They want to see the globe equal.
— Watch “Glenn Beck” weekdays at 5 p.m. ET on Fox News Channel
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