The real point

The real point is that the policies of politicians such as Obama are good for getting elected but fail miserably in excecution, therefore creating a situation where political concerns trump compassion. If true compassion for fellow men and women was the real motivation, then the Obamas of politics wouldn't be proposing tired solutions that have historically shown to be detrimental to middle class finances. Obama, and those like him, surely know this, but they choose to go the route of depending on failed policies because it works getting them in office -- and the public hasn't fully caught on, yet.

Anyone with an ounce of economic savvy knows that raising taxes on the rich doesn't do anything to improve the situation of the middle class -- it actually ensures that the middle class will pay for the tax increases. You might say government will have more money to spend, but even that has been shown incorrect. It's actually only for show to make the politician appear to be instituting fair tax policy. If the goal is actually to help the middle class and raise revenues, then cutting taxes deeply across the board will accomplish this goal -- raising taxes on the rich will not accomplish the goal and will hurt the middle class, moreso than the small tax cut they'll get under the "soak the rich" scheme. We would see much higher tax revenue through consumption taxes and job creation if deeply cutting income and capital gains taxes spurred the economy into action. You would then see employment rise and more workers paying income taxes, then buying more, then more production, then more jobs, on and on.

Why this is not commonly accepted is beyond me. Even with the media remaining quiet on issues like this, the tired scheme has been going on long enough for people to have caught on by now. We have got to stop this type of insanity. It's time for the country to grow up, quit playing games and get down to the serious job of producing growth. To harm yourself because you want the rich to suffer is not smart, especially when it is only you who will suffer.

Learn, then decide.

I hope when the public school systems finally fail we can get private schools to teach economics in a way where young kids can understand the history of economic thought, including Mises, Hayek and Friedman.

I'm by no means an economic genius but I do have a grounding in basics and I'm familiar with the major economic ideas, but I'm amazed at the general public's lack of knowledge when it comes to economic principles. It would be a lot easier for people to make sense of what's happening with government intervention if they had some idea regarding consquences of certain actions affecting the economy.

I recommend everyone to read primers on socialism and free market theories, learn what  makes up a mixed-economy -- Henry Hazlitt is a good start to get a clearer understanding of what can be boring and pedantic. Once a person learns some of the basics, they can listen to politicians and glean their direction if elected.

Economics is too important for our nation to ignore -- it strikes at the heart of who we are and what our future will look like. It strikes at the heart of what we leave those who come after us. It's worth taking 30 minutes a day to study and learn. What I have learned is that the more you know about economics the more it becomes clear that government intervention using political reasons for making changes is dangerous and irrational. What economic knowledge provides is a balance to liberal emotionalism. Many statists will maintain that if we were just better, moral people that socialism would be preferable and morally superior to capitalism. This you should learn is not true, once you learn about socialism and its morally indefensible destruction of the human spirit. But no one has to take my word -- there are plenty of books, both in support of socialism and support of capitalism, that a person can read and decide for themselves. A person might conclude that the statists are right, but at least learn all arguments before making decisions that can take years to undo.

The problem of true mysticism and devotion to State

The problem with people like Obama is that they aren't susceptible to free market solutions because of their deeply ingrained bias and devotion to the idea of The State. It would be like asking an evangelical to open-mindedly consider the atheist's view of morality and right conduct.

Seeing as how the solutions to our economic and social problems lie in the free interactions of free people without government intervention except when actions violate the rights of others, Obama and the present Democrat party are the worst possible choice in direction that our nation can take.

However, ironically,  the Democrats have a great opportunity to be the majority party in government for years and years to come -- not by continuing their statist policies, but by doing the right thing and returning liberty to liberal.

I would be pleased to see Obama stand up to his party and call for free market solutions and lead the party to rid itself of the Pelosis and Franks and Reids and Dodds. It would be a healing move for the nation and it could lead African-Americans out the statist bondage the Democrats have kept them in so that they join the economic mainstream in a more comprehesive way. 

If Obama wants to be a great man and really do good, then he ought to free himself from the worst parts of the Democrat Party and lead the way to a better, more free future. I would love to be wrong about Obama. And with us coming off the largest increase in the size of government under a Republican administration, the opportunity to capture the underlying independent urge for more freedom would place Obama and a new Democrat Party in the people's imagination for a long time to come. The Republicans have dropped the baton of freedom -- Obama could pick it up.

Thinking outside the box :).

Straight talk

When government intervenes in the economy and begins designing our  economic lives there is less outcry than when government attempts to design our social lives. Government's regulation of marriage has caused controversy and strong opposition from part-time libertarians. Government's interference with a right to choose for women was vehemently opposed by those who bravely articulated freedom for women to control their own bodies.  All forms of censorship are derided by those who are offended that the state decides what is proper for adults. And any government attempt to establish a religious bias is immediately squashed.

Yet, economic design by government has been accepted by those who have benefitted and opposed only on particulars by those who are hurt -- in other words, it seems most people accept government design of the economy as long as it benefits their interests. Very few people take a strong stand against the principle of government intervention proposed by economic designers. It seems we have all accepted that government "must do something" in economic matters, we just hope that "something" helps our financial situation.

The problem is that until we oppose government intervention in economic matters as strongly as we resist government intervention in social matters, government power will expand into both areas of concern causing division and entrophy. The truth is that government is incapable of designing our economy -- Our economy, tied to the world's economy, is too complex and the unintended consquences are too great and too many. Also, government design breeds corruption and we see it all too clearly lately.

F. A. Hayek wrote: "It is because it was not dependent on organization but grew up as a spontaneous order that the structure of modern society has attained that degree of complexity which it possesses and which far exceeds any that could have been achieved by deliberate organization. In fact, of course, the rules which made the growth of this complex order possible were initially not designed in expectation of that result; but those people who happened to adopt suitable rules developed a complex civilization which then often spread to others. To maintain that we must deliberately plan modern society because it has become too complex is therefore paradoxical, and the result of a complete misunderstanding of these circumstances. The fact is, rather, that we can preserve an order of such complexity not by the method of directing the members, but only indirectly by enforcing and improving rules conducive to the formation of a spontaneous order."

Again, we can understand this in social matters -- people who believe in big government intervention in economics, industry, the environment, and such would be afraid if a presidential candidate came along proposing sweeping government intervention into our social lives, demanding that government impose strict limitations on religious expression other than Christianity, or laws prohibiting political protest, or mandates on the number of children in a family, or any restrictions on free speech -- but there is capitulation in economic matters. The country doesn't seem to mind if regulations tie businesses in knots and limit the freedoms of business owners.

It's unlikely that McCain understands the power of spontaneous order -- it's an absolute certainty Obama doesn't understand. The truth is that it doesn't matter if they understand, design will fail and the economy will churn in confusion and miscalculation the more government manipulates it. Until we all understand this nothing will get better.

The strange and fatal attraction of statism

The question is -- Why are voters attracted to statists like Obama? Is it merely a reaction to difficult economic times? So, we say -- The economy is terrible and since a Republican is president, I will vote for the Democrat, Obama. Perhaps.

So let's look at what Obama believes. He believes that free enterprise has failed and that those who say - let the free market work -- have misled people and created the economic meltdown that is now taking place. Let's set aside the fact that a free free-market has never existed and go with what he probably means -- that to the extent the market has been allowed to operate without strict government control and design, it has failed.

This tells me that Obama, and those like him, believe the only way for the economy to work equally for all and to establish justice for all is through government control and design -- that the parts of the market left to sponaneous order have caused inequality and injustice.

Obama, and those like him, believe no parts of the economy should go uncontrolled and that right and proper design will achieve the goals of social engineering which small amounts of freedom throughout the market have thwarted. Freedom either works or it doesn't -- you can't have it both ways -- plus he and his cohorts have chided Bush/McCain for their free market policies (what a joke). He believes that operations like ACORN are necessary as activist efforts to help achieve the goals of equality and justice.

Let's also forget for the moment that designs to implement equality and justice have led to the present financial freeze and miscalculations, then ask what Obama might attempt to implement in order to properly design the best of all possible worlds. He will need to take a huge amount of money from those who produce wealth in order to redesign the economy. He will need to help struggling home owners who can't pay their mortgages and he will need to strengthen entitlement programs to support those who have been left behind in the age of technology. This can be done by giving more money to people directly or by forcing financial institutions to work out plans to help those who can't pay for what they've borrowed.

He will need to control private enterprise in a much more active fashion, using the coercive power of the government to transfer a large amount of wealth -- the particulars of how it's done are just a matter of committee decisions, but he will have to exercise much more control over private concerns. Let's forget for a while how businesses will react -- if they leave the country, go out of business, lay people off, whatever, it's something to put on hold for right now, because the critical goal is to achieve equality and justice.

If we all decide that the mystics of muscle are right and that free enterprise must be controlled and designed in order to establish fair redistribution, then I suppose it will happen.

But before we go off the deep end, let's consider a few things. How in the hell do you expect people to sit by and be muscled by unproductive politicians to give their earned wealth away to government? I won't try to convince anyone they are wrong, reality will do the convincing. If I have learned anything through the years it's that reality always wins. You can dance in circles on clouds of hope in your dreams but in reality only that which is real has lasting economic value. All these designs are hot air swirling in small minds and stand for nothing against the real actions of men and women working in the material existence that represents the limitations to which we all must adjust or perish.

You can work yourself into a tingly illusion of utopian equality and justice built on the schemes of social engineers and power brokers all day long but at the end of the day reality goes on day after day, month after month, year after year -- it is what it is. Work has to be done to produce the real products and services that keep us going, and that has to happen through the purpose and intent of human minds, wills and exertion. You can't look at the "economy" as something that can be designed in committees-- it's the separate and many actions of individuals spread out across the world interacting directly and indirectly through the motivation of needs and wants causing co-operation. The only structure that will allow this spontaneous order to fully function is freedom. The controllers and designers of Russia and Iran and Venuzeula are prime examples of idiots propped up by oil - and if it goes so do they, because they have no structure of freedom to allow the spontaneous order of a free market to produce what's needed and wanted. Now the designers want to prop up the US on worthless printed paper, hope and promises, designs and schemes? And they expect producers to produce while politicians take their money to design and scheme and throw it down a black hole? No, I don't have to convice anyone, we'll just wait and see.

The Obamas of the world had better get out of the way -- reality always wins.