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Thursday, July 10, 2008

Obama's America

I've written before here and here about the impact on the politics of the United States as the “millennial generation”—those born between 1980 and 2000—enter the public arena. The stunning rise of Barack Obama to be the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party may be seen as the first decisive consequence of the coming millennial domination of politics there. Certainly the demographics of Obama's supporters is strongly tilted toward the young.

The Obama campaign has been long on style and inspiration and short on specific policy prescriptions, and recently has veered toward the centre on a number of points which were strongly defended during the primary campaign. There has been relatively little outrage among Obama's vehement supporters at these apparent sell-outs, largely, I suspect, because they believe that this running toward the centre is essential to win in the general election, and that once elected, Obama will govern as the hard left ideologue they believe (or at least hope) him to be. It has seemed to me for some time that 2008, the fortieth anniversary of 1968, when the radical wave last peaked and broke, is seen by the aging radicals of the Sixties and their intellectual heirs as the one great chance remaining in their lifetimes to enact radical, transformative change in the U.S., and Barack Obama, a radical by instinct, whose eloquence and thin paper trail allows him to gain the support of centrists who would be repelled were his actual agenda known to them, the vehicle to achieve that change.

If my gut instinct about Obama is correct, and he does manage to win election, along with a Democratic majority in the House and a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, the U.S. will be poised for its sharpest veer to the Left since the New Deal, and perhaps in its history. What will the consequences of this be? Well, nobody knows, but that doesn't deter folks like me (who, unlike the millennials, remember the 1960s and 1970s) from making predictions. So here, in the spirit of Harry Shultz's New Year predictions, are my prognostications for the U.S. and world scene at the end of the first Obama administration. Now, some of these are tongue in cheek (although I suspect readers may differ in their estimation of which), but they all follow from my expectations of how Obama and a unified Democratic majority will govern. Some readers may consider a majority of these items as progress, while others will deem them pernicious. All I'm trying to do here is forecast objective events.

• Top federal marginal tax rate (including Social Security, which will have no cap) 55% or higher. Social Security benefits will remain capped at benefits equal to ≅ $100,000/year income.
• Top Federal estate tax rate 55% with an exclusion of $1 million.
• Universal federal-supervised health care with HHS mandated payments for procedures. Effective rationing of access to expensive procedures begins. Medical tourism to Eastern Europe and Asia comes onto the media radar.
• Mandatory community service for all high school and college students. Federal education aid contingent upon certification of student compliance. Activist groups mobilise to provide turnkey service packages to schools, providing them an opportunity to indoctrinate students and use their labour to further their own agendas.
• Departure tax and mark-to-market exit fee to deter the increasing number of high-income productive citizens planning to emigrate and relinquish their citizenship.
• US dollar trades at 0.50 Euro or lower. OPEC prices crude oil in Euros.
• Dow Jones Industrials close below 6000 for the first time since 1996.
• Russian ships land a “weather station” on an uninhabited island of the Aleutian chain and continue to resupply its four person scientific staff, engaged in “global warming research”. The U.S. protests, and Russia produces documents supporting a claim the island was not transferred as part of the Alaska Purchase. The U.S. takes the question to the United Nations, where it remains unresolved. The Russian station, landed in the first three months of the Obama administration, remains in place.
• The “fairness doctrine” is re-imposed on all broadcasters, including those delivering their content to an audience greater than a specified size on the Internet. The market for conservative talk radio shrinks as affiliates see their revenues fall when forced to carry equal hours of unprofitable liberal programming.
• Under the guise of “network neutrality” the Federal Communications Commission is empowered to regulate transmissions over the Internet with powers comparable to those of the Communications Act of 1934. Using Digital Imprimatur technologies, Internet anonymity begins to erode. Peer to peer Internet traffic is suppressed: only FCC licensed “Internet Transmitter Sites” are allowed to deliver packets through U.S. switches, and only in the clear, except for sites explicitly licensed to use encryption.
• Hate speech legislation leads to the establishment of administrative law human rights tribunals with broad powers to impose penalties for speech, print, or Internet publication.
• Federal minimum wage raised to $8.25/hour with automatic indexing to the Consumer Price Index to begin in 2012.
• Public financing of Senate and House campaigns is enacted, with stringent regulation of “in-kind” expenditures, including promotion by independent Internet advocates including bloggers, who are required to report all mentions of candidates for Federal office, along with their total readership, page access statistics, and advertising revenue received and its sources.
• Full year inflation rate (as measured by the Consumer Price Index) for 2012 is 11.5%.
• Pursuant to the Obesity Reduction Act, the Food and Drug Administration is granted regulatory power over the menus of fast food restaurants.
• Fast-track illegal immigrant amnesty leads to issuance of green cards to 9 million illegals, with 2.5 million obtaining citizenship. Illegal immigration remains at 2008 levels. “Honk if you were born here” bumper stickers begin to appear on pickup trucks in the heartland.
• U.S. unemployment rate is 8.75% at the end of 2012.
• Development of ballistic missile defence, including the Airborne Laser is cancelled, and existing interceptors in Alaska are stood down.
• Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards for vehicles sold in the U.S. are raised to 35 mpg for the 2012 model year, with a planned rise to 45 mpg by 2020. General Motors files for Chapter 11 reorganisation.
• Three U.S. embassies on three continents bombed within ten seconds of one another with a loss of 972 lives, including 72 U.S. citizens. The FBI continues to investigate the incident and attempts to identify the perpetrators.
• Average price of gasoline is $9.75 per gallon. No new domestic oil or gas exploration or production has been authorised, nor has a single nuclear power station been licensed. Wind turbines surround the Capital Beltway to exploit the gales of hot air issuing from within.
• Following the U.S. troop withdrawal, violence flares once again in Iraq and then stability is restored as the successor government, an Iranian client state, brutally puts down Kurd and Sunni resistance with assistance from Iran. Access by Western media to Kurd and Sunni regions is denied, and despite rumours of atrocities, Iraq largely disappears from legacy media attention.
• Iran conducts three underground tests of nuclear devices, the last a 40 kiloton tritium-boosted weaponised design compatible with the uprated Shahab-3 missile. Iran taunts the West by placing the detailed weapon and missile designs on the Internet. Internet traffic monitoring shows a large number of downloads from Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
• The Federal Firearms Liability Act provides for unlimited strict liability for manufacturers, sellers, and resellers of firearms and ammunition used by private citizens in actions brought by those damaged directly or indirectly by their use. Several test cases await certiorari by the Supreme Court, but with the new 7–2 liberal majority, most observers expect the act to be upheld.
• Over a period of three weeks, all of the submarine fibre optic cables to Taiwan fail. The Taiwanese government blames the People's Republic, which denies any involvement, suggesting that “rogue fish” are to blame. The U.S. State Department requests the United Nations to investigate. Two years later, the composition of the committee is almost agreed upon.
• “Carbon surcharge” is enacted on all products whose production, use, or consumption release CO₂ into the atmosphere. Users of electricity generated from coal purchase “offsets” which funnel money into the pockets of politicians who license Beltway wind farms.

Posted at July 10, 2008 23:13