Today is January 20^th. One year from today there will be an inaugural ceremony in Washington. After that ceremony is over the National Mall in front of the Capitol will either be full of trash, or it won’t. If the trash is there you will know that Barack Obama has embarked on his second term. If the people take their trash with them, or actually put it into receptacles, you will know that a U-Haul is waiting to take Obama’s stuff back to Chicago … or Hawaii … or Indonesia … or wherever. If Chicago is the destination perhaps Barack and Michelle will just move in with Bill and Bernadine until their stuff gets there.

If the Obamas aren’t packing up their stuff one year from now, don’t feel sorry for the moving industry. They will probably be better off for it, at least in the short term. It won’t be a huge wave at first, but the reelection of Barack Obama will be the signal to American business that things are going to get no better – and will soon get worse. The age of a dynamic free market economy will be on the way out and the era of a politically controlled command economy will be on the way in. No longer will the private sector and consumers set the course of manufacturers. Those decisions will simply be too important to be left up to simple, uninformed consumers voting with their dollars in the private marketplace. Politicians who have the benefit of studies and government research will be making those decisions. We see how well that worked with the Chevy Volt … just stand by for more.

Barack Obama was raised to despise capitalism, and he has brought that animosity toward the free market into the White House. Obama believes that government is what makes America great. You might think that America’s greatness comes from the dynamic of free people working together in a system based on economic liberty and the rule of law with a minimum of government interference and regulation.

One year from now we will learn whether the road ahead leads to more economic liberty and prosperity, or to more government command and control of virtually every aspect of your life.

The decision will be yours. This isn’t a time for American Idol or (apologies to Chuck and Steak) sports talk radio. It’s a time to pay attention. You owe this to yourself, to your children, and to the people who gave their lives to bring us a free country. We’re at the end of our life expectancy. Obama is America’s Dr. Kevorkian. Pay attention.