Tuesday, October 27, 2009
"Give Galt A Chance"
Thanks to Instapundit, I just saw this well-written post, with a lovely "photo" to go with it:
Okay, it’s time to finally admit it: Barack Obama hates businessmen. Not just certain businessmen, mind you, but the entire profession.(emphasis mine)
Obama has demonized just about every business sector in America. Through the 2008 campaign to the present, he has gone after credit card companies, the coal industry, mortgage companies, real estate companies, steelmakers, utilities, drug companies, doctors, oil companies, Wall Street, defense contractors, and health insurance companies, just to name a few. In each case he has dinged them for greed, taking excessive profits, and failing to put people first. His criticisms have not been over minor matters but over their basic core functions, and their values or lack of them.
Obama demonstrates almost complete ignorance about the private sector and it’s no wonder: he has so little experience in it. He has spent his adult life in college, teaching college, and organizing communities. The one private sector job he has held, for a consulting firm in New York, he recounts as a terrible experience. In his memoirs he describes the experience as working for a private business “like a spy behind enemy lines.”
President Obama would do well to heed the words of Winston Churchill:
"Some regard private enterprise as if it were a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look upon it as a cow that they can milk. Only a handful can see it for what it really is - a strong horse that pulls the whole cart."But he isn't very fond of Sir Winston, is he?
Paraphrasing the Churchill quote above, Robert Heinlein once summed up economics succinctly by describing "the makers, the takers, and the fakers". An economy that demonizes the makers will shortly have fewer of them, a process that Instapundit has been calling "going John Galt". And, as he points out, this is becoming ever-more popular.
