Liberty MavenObama Wants to Capitalize on Crisis
December 31st, 2008 1:59 pm | by Mike Miller | Published in Bailouts, Big Government, Economics, government spending, John Stossel, Liberty, Money, national debt, Politics, Socialism, Taxes | 3 Responses
Two quotes, one from Barack Obama and the other from his choice for chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, spell out their intentions.
Obama said: “Painful crisis also provides us with an opportunity to transform our economy to improve the lives of ordinary people.”
One would have to know and understand the progressive politics (and adherence to socialistic policies and Keynesian economics) to be able to read between the lines. But Emanuel is more straightforward, saying “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.”
Wow. Politicians don’t even bother to hide their agendas any more.
This is the subject of John Stossel’s most recent commentary.
So they will “transform our economy.” Obama’s nearly trillion-dollar plan will not merely repair bridges, fill potholes and fix up schools; it will also impose a utopian vision based on the belief that an economy is a thing to be planned from above. But this is an arrogant conceit. No one can possibly know enough to redesign something as complex as “an economy,” which really is people engaging in exchanges to achieve their goals. Planning it means planning them.Obama and Emanuel want us to believe that their blueprint for reform will bring recovery from the recession. Yet we have recovered from past recessions without undertaking a radical social and economic transformation.
In fact, reform would impede recovery.
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December 31st, 2008 at 2:40 pm (#)
As usual, Stossel is full of it.
Yes, central planning is a conciet, but so also is the idea that “we the people” as rugged individualists, can do any better in certain circumstances. Stossel comp[lains that the economy is too complex for any planning to do any good, and yet we had a set of planners who came up with something that affects not only the economy but our daily lives, the Constitution. Indeed, a political system, which includes the economy, is far more complex. And as for those planners of economies, well, apparently the economy is not so complex to prevent Adam Smith or John Locke to have something to say, indeed, to present a plan for an economy.
As to those of you who subscribe to the idea that the individual knows best, it may be wise to heed Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas who said that no one is the best judge in his own case.
And it is always remarkable that many of you libertarian individualist free thinkers will bow to an authority such as von Mises or Milton Friedman when it comes to matters economic–it would appear that you have allwoed these experts to do that form of planning, called thinking, for you. Indeed, those Paul partisans among you will accept hiw ord on things that you might be investigating on your own—but the partisan responses to any criticisms of Paul or von Mises is an indicator that those partisans are not libertarians at all, but another sort of non-thinkers who follow the leader, be it Rothbard or Napoleon.
January 1st, 2009 at 10:24 am (#)
The Fraud of Government Intervention
By Robert Tracinski | December 31, 2008
http://snipr.com/9c4mn
The top story of 2008 is undoubtedly the revival of the left. After nearly two decades on the defensive following the collapse of the Soviet empire–the definitive example of the failure of socialism–advocates of a government-controlled economy are trying to make a comeback…
January 1st, 2009 at 11:29 am (#)
[...] Liberty Maven points out two very revealing quotes that betray the agenda of the upcoming administration. One is from Barack Obama and the other is from Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. This spells out their economic intentions pretty well. Obama said: “Painful crisis also provides us with an opportunity to transform our economy to improve the lives of ordinary people.” One would have to know and understand the progressive politics (and adherence to socialistic policies and Keynesian economics) to be able to read between the lines. But Emanuel is more straightforward, saying “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” [...]