The financial grading of the United States sovereign debt has been lowered to AA+, the first time since 1941. President Obama's economic policies have been given the rating that they deserve. Distributing billions and trillions of dollars cannot be sustained without an appropriate program that creates growth and most importantly create jobs for Americans. President Obama will respond in turn by downgrading the credibility of S & P's decision. That will not erase the President's failure after a long line of failures since his election almost three years ago.
This belief in distributing money, big money is typical of financial thinking that has been the backbone of socialist thinking. Never mind that those countries in the world, mainly European who have based their economies on socialistic-welfare type economies are on the verge of bankruptcy and must institute draconian fiscal constraints to save their economies and prevent their countries from going bankrupt. President Obama in unison with many European leaders has been at the forefront of dismissing American exceptionalism in favor of a global economy at the expense of America's economic leadership. Fortunately, healthy economies cannot be based on political orientation or social justice; they are based on real economic activity. For this reason alone, we will see in the coming weeks an American President leading from behind, who will continue ignoring economic realities and pursue his ideological agenda of weakening the United States of America.
For us in Israel, we have had to deal with our own local representatives of this kind of political lunacy marching towards social justice. Until this past week, I didn't know that Israel was once a "paradise". "The poverty was not acute...Those who worked could make a modest but a respectable living for themselves and their families," stated Amoz Oz, the internationally acclaimed Leftist author. He speaks nostalgically of the magnificent past, adding that Israel was an egalitarian society in which new immigrants, refugees and those who lived in transit camps were granted education, health care and public housing. However, he stated, "all of this has been destroyed as the big-capital governments encouraged and inflamed the economic jungle laws."
The only problem with this idyllic description is that it is false, but typical of leftist writers who rewrite history in the best of the Bolshevistic tradition. The first 30 formative years of the state were difficult years, years of poverty and shortages, ethnic discrimination, and a low standard of living. Who had a car then? Who went out to eat in a restaurant? Who dreamed of going abroad? At a later stage, when the trips abroad began, the most amazing tour was not of the Louvre but of a local supermarket in Paris to see the abundance of food, the diversity, the colors - while we in Israel had only Shenhav toothpaste, Elite instant coffee and Osem noodles on our shelves. Our luck was that the founding fathers of Israel, despite the fact that they came from the socialist revolution in Europe, understood that in the long run socialism leads to poverty and moved Israel over to a market economy after a relatively short time. This process, which is still ongoing, saved us. Our standard of living rose dramatically in the past 30 years. Imports were allowed and the selection increased while the prices dropped. From a closed and backward economy that relied on exporting oranges, Israel turned into an exporter of high tech at the forefront of technology. Prime Minister Netanyahu has had a vital role in maintaining the success of Israel's market economy.
The Leftist political forces that are behind the demonstrations in Israel over the past three weeks are the very same that cooperated with foreign governments and forced Israel to agree to a construction freeze in Judea and Samaria including the areas adjacent to Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem, exuberating the housing shortage. They are the very same political forces that encouraged and campaigned against deporting the tens of thousands of illegal foreign workers who inhabit no less than 8000 apartments in Tel-Aviv alone, again exuberating the housing shortage in Tel-Aviv. The high price of affordable housing in Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv has been the main impetus for the demonstrations that we have seen. The national media in full collusion with the Leftist political parties and the New Israel Fund are financing the demonstrations by paying salaries of demonstration activists, paying for the thousands of buses to transport volunteers to the demonstrations, and paying for the media campaign.
Israel's economy and her level of social equality are not perfect, gaps exist that need to be corrected. A market economy requires regulation and constant concern for the weaker elements who have yet to access the benefits of a free economy. Israel has a string of trade agreements with the United States, including a free trade agreement, which made the American economic superpower Israel's main export target. President Obama's economic agenda has a direct impact not only on the United States but on all those nations in the world that have aligned themselves politically and economically with America, including Israel.
In the same manner that we have been taught to believe as truth the false and biased account of Israel's legal right to remain in Judea and Samaria, we are being indoctrinated to go against our own common sense and give credence to these very same political lunatics who thunder about social justice.