In his State of the Union address, President Obama emphasized, “We don’t begrudge financial success in this country. We admire it.” That may be the case if you make iPods, iPads, and iPhones, but when it is “big oil” (i.e., stockholders, pension funds, and IRAs investing in oil companies) that has a successful quarter, let the public onslaught commence. The most recent attack has been legislatively, when Representative Dennis Kucinich (D–OH) introduced “the Gas Price Spike Act.” The provisions in the bill threaten the entrepreneurial spirit and our system of … More
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“Economic fairness” is expected to be the topic of President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address on Tuesday night, during which he will likely sound the same populist notes of progressivism that America heard last month in his speech in Osawatomie, Kansas. Fairness, though, is in the eye of the beholder. And in the President’s eye, “fairness” means equality of outcomes, not of opportunity. He says he will “lay out a blueprint for an American economy that’s built to last,” but if his Kansas speech is any indication, that … More
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Free-market capitalism is losing supporters these days. Wall Street occupiers blame banks, financial firms, and Wall Street for the bad economy. President Obama derides free markets, in true straw-man fashion, as you’re-on-your-own economics with “a free license to take whatever you want from whoever you can.” Even some Republican presidential candidates have inveighed against capitalism. What about the Founders? What did they think about free-market capitalism? Although the term capitalism was scarcely in use at the time of the Founding, the Founders supported the principle of economic liberty underlying it. … More
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