Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
How Obama Can Lead Us to Recovery
How Obama Can Lead Us to Recovery
Jan 13, 2026 4:07 AM

I have been part of an email correspondence group for a couple of years now which includes a number of strong public policy thinkers. One of the best is a man named Francis Cianfrocca (aka “Blackhedd”) who writes regularly at Redstate. He has been spot on with regard to the current financial crisis. I’ve read far better stuff from him in my inbox than I’ve been able to find at CNBC or Fox Business News. All of this is to say that he is plugged in to the munity and has a strong analytical mind for making sense of it all.

Here is his latest. And here is a taste:

Obama could sweep away a lot of this uncertainty and unreasoning fear with no more than a ten-minute news conference.

He could stand up, with the towering Paul Volcker, the sour-pussed Larry Summers and the sardonic-looking Tim Geithner standing behind him, and say the following:

“Ladies and gentlemen, I’ve consulted at length with my economic team. We’re acutely aware that our economy is facing great uncertainty. We understand that our system is a capitalistic one. We intend to do whatever it takes to get business and capital working again, for the sake of every consumer and working person in America.

We also recognize our critical responsibility to the rest of the world. As the pre-eminent economic power, it’s up to us to lead global markets back to health and prosperity.

I’m announcing the following key decisions, which we will stand by until our markets are back to normal, employment is growing, and our economy is healthy again:

All tax increases on capital, dividends, and business e are OFF THE TABLE.

All protectionist legislation, including increased tariffs and import duties, are OFF THE TABLE.

All new regulations, mandated costs and taxes on businesses, including export businesses, are OFF THE TABLE.

That is all. Thank you.”

If Obama were to give this speech, you’d see explosive market rallies, and everyone would heave a big sigh of relief.

So how about it, Mr. President-elect?

Sounds like some first class “Nixon goes to China” action to me.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Commentary: Leviathan, Civil Society and National Morality
Don’t blame the culture wars for the recent debates about contraception, says Phillip W. De Vous in this week’s Acton Commentary (published Apr. 4), the real culprit is statism.The full text of his essay follows. Subscribe to the free, weeklyActon News & Commentaryand other publicationshere. Leviathan, Civil Society and National Morality byPhillip W. De Vous Political campaigns in every era have included talk of morality and moral principles in general. They rarely shy away from discussing even very specific moral...
Jayabalan: Vatican Statement Shows Business and Faith Compatible
Reporter Carol Glatz of the Catholic News Service has a story on the new Vatican document titled “Vocation of the Business Leader: A Reflection” aimed at educators, entrepreneurs and business people. Glatz interviews Kishore Jayabalan, director of Acton’s Rome office, who praised the document for its pastoral approach: “It’s trying to encourage and inspire business people” and prompt them to “think about how to incorporate their faith more into what they do,” Jayabalan told Catholic News Service. It shows that...
Who Keeps the Keepers?
Sam Gregg’s response to President Obama’s latest invocation of the “my brother’s keeper” motif brings out one of the basic problems with applying this biblical question to public policy. As Gregg points out, the logic of the president’s usage points to the government as the institution of brotherly love: But who is the “I” that President Obama has in mind? Looking carefully at his speech, it’s most certainly not the free associations munities that Alexis de Tocqueville thought made 19th-century...
Consumers Acting Badly
I found this video on NPR’s ‘Planet Money’ intriguing. A young woman reflects on the cost of her wedding dress, which she’s obviously worn once. She recognizes that there is enormous emotional attachment to this garment, but there is something going on in terms of how much she spent; she just can’t quite put her finger on it. She eventually finds out that she probably over-paid by about $1200. She believes she has been ripped off. There are a few...
Events of Note Next Week
Here are some events worth noting next week: On Wednesday, April 11, Victor Claar will join us for an Acton on Tap. Victor Claar is a professor of economics at Henderson State University in Arkansas, and previously taught for a number of years at Hope College. I’ll be introducing Victor and the topic for the evening, “Envy: Socialism’s Deadly Sin.” We’ll begin to mingle at 6pm, and the talk mence at 6:30, followed by what’s sure to be some lively...
Rev. Sirico Responds to NPR’s ‘Christian Is Not Synonymous With Conservative’
Jon Erwin, director of the pro-life October Baby movie, was recently interviewed by National Public Radio and, in the background article that panied the audio, the network reported his view that Christians didn’t feel very e in Hollywood’s munity. This provoked a lot ment by NPR listeners about what, really, a Christian is. The title of the NPR article, “‘October Baby’ Tells A Story Hollywood Wouldn’t” probably had something to do with that. Ombudsman Edward Schumacher-Matos followed up the interview...
Jimmy Carter, Liberation Theologian
I came across this news story via Catholic World News. And this intriguing passage about President Carter’s disagreements with Pope John Paul II: Carter wrote that he exchanged harsh words with the late Pope John Paul II during a state visit over what Carter classified as the Pope’s “perpetuation of the subservience of women.” He added, “there was more harshness when we turned to the subject of ‘liberation theology’.” I haven’t read the book, so I’m awfully curious to know...
Market Economies with Churches and Market Economies without Churches
Zhao Xiao, a government economist in China, on the differences between market economies with Churches (like the U.S.) and market economies without churches (like China): Is it not integrity that you are pursuing? Then you ought to know: places with faith have more integrity. For China’s crawling economic reforms, this ought to be an important inspiration. Market economies with churches are different in another respect from those without: in the former, it is much easier to establish monly respected system....
On Call Through Video
We are continuing to interview people in different areas of work to showcase what being On Call in Culture looks like on a daily basis. Today we introduce Rachel Bastarache Bogan, video editor for SIM. Learn more about Rachel at As a child, Rachel was surrounded by creativity including music and painting. Her favorite gift was a “box full of opportunity” that someone had filled with random knick knacks from a craft store. When she was five years old, she...
Musings for Good Friday
A marvellous and mighty paradox has thus occurred, for the death which they thought to inflict on Him as dishonour and disgrace has e the glorious monument to death’s defeat. ~ Athanasius, On the Incarnation of the Word. Job in the Old Testament called out to God begging for a mediator or advocate, begging for somebody who could understand the depth of his affliction and agony (Job 9). Such is the beauty of Christ that he came not to teach...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2026 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved