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In the decades that I have spent studying the interaction of public policy and economics in dozens of countries around the world, I have discovered time and again that most of the great economic tragedies can be traced back directly to misguided policies and an utter lack of understanding on the part of politicians of how businesses and economies actually work. The amount of pain, suffering, and economic losses incurred by hundreds of millions, if not billions of people around the world, due solely to the policy prescriptions of ignorant and arrogant politicians, is almost incalculable. And of course the depression of the 1930s is just one example, as related so well by Amity Shlaes in "The Forgotten Man
." "FDR's Folly
," by Jim Powell, is also excellent.There are two solutions to this problem: only put people in power who really know how economies work (or who have advisors who do), or severely limit the ability of politicians to meddle with the economy. As a practical matter, the latter seems like the best choice. Or, as Rick Santelli put it the other day, "Just stop spending! Stop the spending!"
Speaker Pelosi: as noted in my previous post, the federal government has been sending out unemployment checks to almost 10 million people for the past year—an unprecedented number of checks—yet the unemployment rate has been stuck at a very high 10%. May I suggest that you have no idea what you are talking about?
8 comments:
Scott,
Well presented and true: they have not a clue regarding correct economic principles -- not even the most basic ones contained in a book as 'Economics in One Lesson' by Hazlitt.
The two solutions you recommend are noble but will not solve the problem. The correct solution is contained in the work titled 'Civilization Engineering: How to Build the World's First Stable, Durable Civilization' by Riness. Your chiropractor brother owns a copy.
Scott, although I had already found Nancy Pelosi frightening, and I don't use that word lightly, this video has shaken me to my core. The fact that the speaker of the house can actually say this has brought me to tears. Perhaps I'm in an emotional state this morning, but I have a four year old son who I love with every ounce of my being, and the fact that we have leaders whose understanding of freedom and our country has sunk to this depth cannot be corrected without a lot of pain.
Amen and amen. That was exactly my point to Public Library a few months back. We just shouldn't care so much what happens in Washington...they shouldn't be able to affect us this much.
Governments now take 46% of our national income. How is this different from the nobles, kings, and landowners letting the peasants keep half of what their fields produce?? We have a ruling class no different from the communist party members who received the economic benefits in the old Soviet Union. Pelosi flies in her own 757 for goodness sakes!
Paul Wellston had a net worth of $150k when he took office. I heard his estate was $20 million when he died! Our corrupt government is enriching themselves and their cronies off our backs. The Boston Tea Party was over 2 cents per pound! What are we going to do about 46%!
Scott Grannis for President! Rick Santelli for Veep.
Congress may be sad, but the Federal Reserve is even more frightening. You are kidding yourselves if you beleive the Federal REserve is not equally if not more so responsible for this calamity.
How does your recommendation to put more Bernanke's and Greenspans in office hold up when they clearly led us swiftly off the cliff?
This is a multi-pronged problem. Removing Pelosi won't solve it entirely.
How many quotes of Bernanke completely mis-diagnosing the current crisis are out there? And he is still leading us through this!!! Heresy!!!
Economist need to be held accountable and removed immediately for their disastrous policies. How many CEO's stick around after sending their companies into the toilet?
We need to let the markets work as they should and that calls for the reduction of power, influence, and opacity of the Federal Reserve. Without it, we are slaves to their megalomaniac methodologies.
There are many failures to point to. One of the key ones, IMO, is the compromised and failed fourth estate. In a vibrant democracy a relatively unbiased press is an absolute essential to that society's success. It's a major check and balance mechanism.
I did not hear any reporter ask Pelosi how unemployment benefits create jobs. A fairly simple question and one that should have been asked immediately to expose the lunacy of the question. Without a demanding press officials only become more embolden to not only tell lies, but to be flippant in the process. Witness Biden's reaction to the bakery shop owner when he went to pay for his custard and the proprietor said "it was on the house, but just lower our taxes". Biden called him a smart aleck!
It's hard enough to fight the forces of socialism. On it's surface and simplistically it is an appealing prospect to many many people. Most people would rather be taken care of and so when they are told that they will, they fall prey not knowing the cost will be so high as they loose their freedoms and ultimately their prosperity.
Currently our press has failed the society it serves as it fails to critically examine both sides of the political spectrum.
Mr. Grannis:
“In the decades that I have spent studying the interaction of public policy and economics in dozens of countries around the world, I have discovered time and again that most of the great economic tragedies can be traced back directly to misguided policies and an utter lack of understanding on the part of politicians of how businesses and economies actually work. The amount of pain, suffering, and economic losses incurred by hundreds of millions, if not billions of people around the world, due solely to the policy prescriptions of ignorant and arrogant politicians, is almost incalculable. And of course the depression of the 1930s is just one example, as related so well by Amity Shlaes in "The Forgotten Man." "FDR's Folly," by Jim Powell, is also excellent.”
If your readers have or have not read The Forgotten Man, A New History of the Great Depression by Amity Shlaes, they need to take a look at the essay by William Graham Sumner “The Forgotten Man” which Shlaes explains she barrowed as the title for her book.
Sumner’s essay The Forgotten Man was a famous essay in its time and was referenced many times in the late 1800’s and early 1980’s. The FDR administration co-oped the phrase “Forgotten Man” and used the phrase for a totally different reason and different political-economy agenda then intended and argued by Sumner in his 1883 essay.
Sumner’s essay is timeless and is likely as applicable today as it was in 1883. A link to the essay is below:
http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=1654&layout=html#chapter_108194
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