BARONE ANALYZES "MATTRESS ECONOMY" – AT 8:10 A.M. ET:  Michael Barone, one of the best political analysts around, calls it the "mattress economy," and it isn't working very well, meaning big trouble for the man at the top.  From The Washington Examiner:

Government policies designed to stimulate the economy seem to be having the opposite effect. Consumers aren't buying, businesses aren't hiring and those fortunate enough to have some cash on hand don't seem to be investing.

I call it the mattress economy.

People seem to be following this investment strategy. Step one: Go to Mattress Discounters and buy the biggest mattress you can find. Step two: Take it home and stuff all your money in it. Step three: Lie down and get some rest.

This hurts the economy, but it's a rational response to the Obama Democrats' public policies. And that's not just the view of their political opponents.

Consider the plaint of Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg, head of the Business Roundtable, which has been playing footsie with the Obama administration for most of the last 18 months. "By reaching into virtually every sector of economic life," Seidenberg recently wrote, "government is injecting uncertainty into the marketplace and making it harder to raise new capital and create new businesses."

And...

Instead of stimulating the economy, the Obama Democrats' policies have shocked it into immobility. People are lying on their mattresses, waiting for the next shock. At least one is definitely coming: The Bush tax cuts expire at the end of the year, which means that high earners can be sure they will very soon keep less of what they make.

There will be an enormous fight over the expiring Bush tax cuts.  Democrats, as a matter of religious faith, cannot renew them.  Republicans will demand that the Dems commit heresy and agree to renewing.  A good time will not be had by all.

The grimness for this administration has only begun.

America has seen this kind of thing before. In the late 1930s, when Franklin Roosevelt raised taxes on high earners, encouraged lawless sit-in strikes by labor unions and took over utility businesses, the response was a "capital strike."

Instead of creating jobs, businesses and investors put their money in mattresses. The result was a stagnant economy and double-digit unemployment-and a 75-seat Republican gain in the 1938 off-year elections.

COMMENT:  As Sarah asks, "How's that hopey changey stuff workin' out for you?"

Unless Obama can turn things around, or appear to, I think there's a realistic chance he will be a one-term president, either through defeat at the polls or his own decision to retire from the field rather than risk a humiliating defeat.

But Obama is an ideologist.  I don't think there's much chance he'll change any basic policies. 

Liberals were in political Heaven in November of 2008.  Now they're heading south, for the hotter sectors of the religious universe.  They will need Obamacare just to treat their psychiatric turmoil.

July 12,  2010