Posted by
Deadpan on Thursday, March 27, 2008 3:11:22 PM
I listened to
his speech on the economy this morning until I couldn't stand any more. He's very smart, but then so was Jayson Blair. What they have in common is the ability to sound genuine when they're only poseurs. Obama started out paying lip service to Alexander Hamilton and free markets, using a lot of economic terminology, then doing a neat 180 turn and talking about how the markets need government regulation to protect the weak and vulnerable. His vocabulary and references sounded impressive, but he really didn't say anything except to make it clear that he would like us to steer straight down the middle of the road to serfdom. He talked about the Invisible Hand, but asserted that it mustn't be allowed to operate freely.
Huh? What does he think makes markets efficient? Centralized planning?
``Our free market was never meant to be a free license to
take whatever you can get, however you can get it,'' Obama said
in an address at New York's Cooper Union for the Advancement of
Science and Art. ``The American economy does not stand still, and
neither should the rules that govern it.''
His whole speech is an oxymoron and a pose. You can't mention free markets and rules governing them in the same breath and know what you're talking about. As a matter of fact, true free markets ARE "meant to be free licenses to take whatever you can get, however you can get it." That's what "free" means. The whole point of the Invisible Hand is to allow competition to adjust goods and prices
without intervention from government, except to enhance competition. Of course, what drives the mechanism is self-interest which spurs producers to meet market demands and charge as much as you can, but subject to the countervailing pressure of competition, which limits the prices one can charge. The result is more products, innovation, variety and styles and lower prices.
When government tries to tinker with markets, it fouls up the functioning of the market mechanism. When government regulates businesses, the businesses usually end up controlling the regulatory policies to their own advantage.
All that is elementary economics, but Obama simply throws the terminology around while calling for more central planning, more subsidies and guarantees. He reverts to the old classs warfare rhetoric of the populist demagogue, blaming Wall Street for the problems of Main Street and becomes a stern lecturer, despite not knowing what he's talking about. It sounds good to those who pity themselves and want government power to intervene on their behalf, even though it has never worked. Socialist entitlement programs and regulatory agencies which serve the interests of those enterprises with sufficient resources to hire lobbyists and lawyers aplenty are bleeding our nation white, but liberals like Obama and Clinton only see the problems created as new opportunities to raise taxes and spending in order to buy votes with the voters' own money.
I had been wondering where Obama's glorious oratory I'd heard about was. Now I'm convinced that it just isn't there. Obama knows how to use phrases that liberals and minorities love, but he doesn't say anything coherent. As I said, he's Jayson Blair running for President.