Michelle Malkin » Cube-steak Americans vs. the Wagyu-beef White House

Cube-steak Americans vs. the Wagyu-beef White House

By Michelle Malkin • March 6, 2009 11:44 AM

My syndicated column today spotlights the return of thrift in individual American households — a phenomenon that stands in stark contrast to the unmitigated profligacy embraced by Barack Obama’s White House.

Opposition is growing to the confisctory spending train: Witness the Senate Republican success in delaying the omni-pork, coupled with the aggressive House GOP call this morning for a spending freeze, on top of the growing unease among both liberal and moderate Democrats, on top of the burgeoning Tea Party and Going Galt movements.

Can we hope for change? Yes, we can. In the meantime, feel free to share how you are tightening your belts and practicing the personal responsibility to which our president pays loquacious lip service.

***

Cube-steak Americans vs. the Wagyu-beef White House
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2009

Maybe thrift isn’t dead after all. The Year of the Bottomless Bailout has yielded a much-needed correction in the lives of ordinary Americans. While government fiscal restraint is AWOL in Washington, individual frugality has made a cultural comeback. Better late than never.

In large and small ways, we are cutting back. An online Zogby International survey this week reported that 70 percent of households are foregoing movies and restaurants. Forty percent of those polled said they were delaying the purchase of major items such as automobiles, homes entertainment electronics, or a computer; the same percent said they were giving up vacations. Notably, Reuters pointed out, “nearly 80 percent of younger adults, aged 18-29, said they have scaled back on going out, compared to 55 percent of people 65 years and older.”

Pollster John Zogby called the results “depressing.” I beg to differ. Out of necessity, a consumption-based society is learning to live within its means. For decades, government policies fueled that insatiable appetite — and new government programs are desperately trying to preserve it. But the Obama administration’s frantic efforts to encourage more brainless home-buying, car-buying, and consumer borrowing aren’t producing their desired results. Generational theft, it seems, has a silver lining.

The phenomenon is spreading beyond America’s borders. London-based economic journalist Hamish McRae recently observed: “We may be on the cusp of a big socioeconomic shift. We have had half a century when the developed world has gradually moved away from regarding thrift as a virtue. It has moved at different speeds in different countries, faster in the US and UK than in Germany or China…We have created the institutional structure that has supported this shift: from credit cards to collateralised debt obligations (CDOs). The world has clearly reached a point where it can go no further down that road…The pendulum will swing back. How far and how fast we cannot tell, but we can be sure that debt will be regarded differently a generation from now.”

President Obama, celebrated by his liberal media admirers for a miraculous ability to groove with the common man, hasn’t yet caught on to the new age of individual austerity. As always, he talks a good game of “personal responsibility” and “sacrifice.” But while penny-pinching Americans head to Sonic Drive-Ins for $1 everyday value meals or stay at home for cheap cube-steak dinners (sales of the inexpensive meat are up 10 percent), the White House serves up high-grade Wagyu beef to congressional revelers. The luxury item was on the menu for the bipartisan stimulus dinner in January and was also served up at the governors’ dinner hosted at the White House two weeks ago.

Team Obama’s image experts, perhaps hung over from all the Camelot-recreating Wednesday cocktail parties that are now a signature of the new administration, have fallen down on the job. The man who scolded Americans for wasting energy and turning their thermostats too high still hasn’t lowered his own. “He’s from Hawaii, O.K.?” senior adviser David Axelrod snickered to the New York Times in January. “He likes it warm. You could grow orchids in there.”

In flyover country, the mood could not be more different. Party time is over. I heard from a reader in northwest Arkansas, now upside down on her house with two college-age kids who is preparing to tighten the family belt. President Obama, meet personal responsibility:

“We are ultimately responsible for the mess we are in. If my husband and I have to live in his pick-up and get ready for work at the community gym, so be it. If we lose our jobs, we will move in with [my husband's] mother, and he will hunt and I will garden. We have never been on unemployment, welfare, nor other assistance. We are Americans. Our ancestors fought in the American Revolution, the Civil War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War and his brother fought in Vietnam. Our family has faced tougher foes than this economy and Barak Obama. We will do as true Americans do; we will not whine, we will persevere.”

Waste not, want not: Outside of Washington, it’s the renewed American way.

Posted in: Pork, Tea Party, fiscal stimulus

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#401

On March 11th, 2009 at 12:56 am, zeroangel said:

You know how these days we look back through the history of our nation and find it hard to imagine that many years ago many people actually thought there is something wrong with a black (or Catholic, or Asian, or mixed, etc.) President.

That is exactly the way your viewpoint in regards to atheism will be perceived.

You are a bigot. Your bigotry is currently mainstream and accepted. However, this doesn’t make you any less a bigot. Since you have a mixed household (as do I) maybe you can appreciate this, and maybe you can’t.

Your last post was an obvious deflection. I hope I have at least given you something to think about.
#402

On March 11th, 2009 at 1:03 am, WarEagle82 said:

Like I said, your definition of “bigot” is someone who believes something you don’t. It may make you feel morally superior and smug but in real life it means nothing.

I grew up in the deep south and I got called names because of the friends I had way back when it wasn’t acceptable to have those kind of friends. It cost me something as a kid. So you have given me something to think about. I will always wonder why self-righteous anti-Christian bigots like you think you are morally superior to anyone and everyone.

On March 11th, 2009 at 12:56 am, zeroangel said:

Your last post was an obvious deflection. I hope I have at least given you something to think about.
#403

On March 11th, 2009 at 1:09 am, zeroangel said:

WarEagle82:

Like I said, I would vote for a Christian (indeed I have). I am not the one who is “anti” anything; except maybe “anit-people-telling-me-I-am-unqualified-to-hold-public-office-just-because-of-my-lack-of-religious-beliefs.”
#404

On March 11th, 2009 at 1:19 am, WarEagle82 said:

Well, after looking at the track record of Mao, Stalin, Lenin, Pol-Pol, Sung, Castro and Mugabe I can’t blame you for voting for Christians. Statistically, it isn’t healthy to vote for atheists.

Good luck with that “bigot” thing. It may work on simple-minded folk like Chappy but I ain’t buying it.
#405

On March 11th, 2009 at 1:28 am, zeroangel said:

Let’s see:

Recent polls suggest about 10% of Americans are not religious. For the sake of argument let’s say 5%.

Total US population = 300,000,000 * 5% = 15,000,000 atheists.

You have 7 people listed.

Statistically, your 7 are irrelevant (not to mention not even American).

PS. It’s Pol-Pot
#406

On March 11th, 2009 at 1:33 am, WarEagle82 said:

No, my list of 7 are not irrelevant to the hundreds of millions they have murdered or their families. Their murderous practices are not irrelevant to people who actually learn something from the past and other people’s mistakes.

And I don’t care how many people believe the earth is flat or there is no God. They are all still wrong. Absolute truth is not governed by how many people DON’T accept it. Er, shall we call that a “straw man” and not a very clever one?

And you say to-MAH-toh and I say to-MAY-toh. Pol-Pot, Pol-Pol? Just another dead atheist murdering thug who now KNOWS he was wrong.
#407

On March 11th, 2009 at 10:02 am, zeroangel said:

people who actually learn something from the past and other people’s mistakes.

…like Communism is bad?

Er, shall we call that a “straw man” and not a very clever one?

Umm, no, it’s not a strawman and it’s totally relevant because we were talking about statistics (which you brought up).

WarEagle, just like with Chap and the coloring book thing, you can’t just recycle comments; at the very least it shows you are incredibly uncreative.

Anyhow, there you go again with “absolute truth;” as if you have any clue. Wouldn’t it be something if “God” (or Zeus, or Thor, or Apollo, or Allah, etc.) actually does exist but turns out he REALLY doesn’t like it when people claim to know what he wants and tell their fellow human beings they are going to hell? In fact, you would think telling other people they are going to hell is kind of wrong.
#408

On March 11th, 2009 at 12:40 pm, WarEagle82 said:

Dear, dear ZA,

You still don’t get it. I CAN do anything I want to do. You don’t get to tell me what I can say or who I must vote for. You don’t get to decide which of my views and opinions are acceptable for me to hold. It is still a free country, at least for those of us not ruled by atheists.

I can say “straw man” or “coloring books” or “misunderestimate” as often as I want.

And your logic continues to deteriorate. If I know someone is about to plunge over a cliff then I would warn them if I cared. If I didn’t care I’d let them plunge right over the edge!

And I know what God want has said on the topic of life and death. He told us all about it in the instruction manual, full of ABSOLUTE TRUTH, He left behind for that very purpose. I’ll send you a copy if you can’t find one. And try not to stand so close to the edge there. You might fall…
#409

On March 11th, 2009 at 1:54 pm, zeroangel said:

WarEagle82:

Yes, you are absolutely right. If you want to discriminate against people based on religion or race you are completely allowed to (well at least for voting). You are right again, I don’t get to decide which of your views are acceptable, you are free to make an ass of yourself and I am free to call you on it. It is a free country, one where I am free to be an atheist (who doesn’t murder people) and free to point out your idiocy.

I can say “straw man” or “coloring books” or “misunderestimate” as often as I want.

Yup, you can make as many incoherent or childish statements as you like.

If I know someone is about to plunge over a cliff then I would warn them if I cared.

Emphasis mine. There you go AGAIN! Stop pretending to KNOW. You don’t KNOW anything about what happens after death and you are pretty arrogant for trying to tell me what is going to happen to me. Furthermore, you don’t care what happens to me, in fact I bet you probably look forward to some imaginary time when you can look down into “hell” and say, “I told you so.” If you really cared about me you would be trying to tell me all the great things about being a Christian, not trying to insult or argue with me.

He told us all about it in the instruction manual, full of ABSOLUTE TRUTH, He left behind for that very purpose.

You are talking about the Bible of course. Yes, I have one (as well as copies of Holy Texts from one or two other religions, all of which I have read). So, the Bible is absolute truth is it?

http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/says_about/rape.html

So, this perfect “god” sounds pretty nasty. Even humans have figured out things like killing a rape victim because she didn’t scream is WRONG.
#410

On March 11th, 2009 at 4:09 pm, zeroangel said:

Incidentally, I was just thinking about this stupid “body-count” argument of yours and it occurred to me:

demographics in relation to China show that at least 100 million people are atheist.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_China#Statistics

According to the surveys of Phil Zuckerman on Adherents.com in 1993; there was 59% (over 700 million)[30] of the Chinese population was irreligious and 8% – 14% was atheist (from over 100 to 180 million) as of 2005

According to this tedious and inane article by Dinesh D’Souza (someone whom Hitchens has made to look a fool on several occasions):

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1121/p09s01-coop.html

your ~~atheist~~ Communist mass murders have killed around 100 million.

Collectively these atheist tyrants murdered more than 100 million people.

What does this mean?

Well it presumably means that in the coming century your “god” will send around 100 million people; many of whom are very likely decent people trying to get on with thier lives just like the rest of us; to burn and suffer for all eternity. Now, this is just considering present time and one country.

If we consider other countries, the past, and also the idea that everyone who isn’t Christian (not just atheists) is going to hell, well then there is absolutely no question that “Yahweh” is far worse then Stalin, Mao and all your others combined.

After all, they only killed people once. Your “perfect, kind, and loving god” is sending them to suffer forever.