Steve Forbes‘ latest Forbes column critiques the president’s latest musings about current economic conditions.
PRESIDENT OBAMA HAS written an “open letter” of several thousand words to The Economist about capitalism, immigration, the economy and the economic areas on which his successor should focus.
The whole thing encapsulates the wrongheaded and obstinately held thinking that has brought the U.S. and the world economies to a near halt. The duration of the stagnation–and the feeling that there really is no end in sight–is breeding increasingly ugly politics.
The essay also has its share of Obama’s trademark disingenuousness that has fanned the political divisiveness that he so piously denounces. For instance, he declares that “capitalism has been the greatest driver of prosperity and opportunity the world has ever known.” Yet as President of the U.S., the bastion of free enterprise, he has successfully pursued a socialist agenda that has Karl Marx applauding from the grave.
Smart socialists years ago recognized that government doesn’t need to seize “the means of production” to control the economy. Instituting sweeping and intrusive rules and regulations that make the survival of whole industries and companies dependent on the whims of government bureaucrats is sufficient. Finance is the lifeblood of an economy, yet banks have been subjugated by the Dodd-Frank Act. Regulators are also using that legislation to try to rope in insurance companies, mutual funds and any other entities that deal in finance to garner more control for Washington. The Federal Reserve has engaged in a regime of credit allocation that has led to the credit malnutrition of small and new businesses. With no authority it has given itself a bond portfolio totaling some $4.2 trillion.
We also see what the horrific so-called Affordable Care Act is doing to health care, which encompasses almost 20% of the economy. Fossil fuels have been under relentless bureaucratic attack. Colleges and universities jump to attention whenever a Washington agency sends a mere “advisory” letter; such letters have been used to gut due process regarding all sorts of alleged offenses, the result of which stifles free speech and promotes thought control. For-profit educational institutions have been targeted for extinction. The IRS continues to suppress groups deemed hostile to Big Government. Obama never misses an opportunity to advance his goal of federal control of local law enforcement. Even the Internet–the most dynamic force in modern time precisely because it’s been free from government control–is being brought to heel with 1930s-style FCC regulation. And on and on it goes.
Is it any wonder that for the first time in memory the creation of new businesses lags the closing of existing ones? Or that the economic recovery from the sharp 2008–09 downturn has been the worst in U.S. history?
