Iran Must Not Be Allowed Nuclear Weapons
By Deal Hudson
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made his annual address to the United Nations General Assembly late last week. He reminded America and the free world just what a crazed world view he purports when he called for an investigation into the United States attack on its own World Trade Centers on 9/11. It was brilliant theater and a classic distraction technique to be sure. What he didn’t want you and I to focus on was what his brutal, menacing regime is doing to its own people, to its neighbors, and to the world.
The financial services ‘reform’ mess
By J.C. Watts
During my service in Congress, whenever legislation was dubbed “reform” it was especially necessary to analyze the details and consequences. So it is with congressional passage of President Barack Obama’s financial services “reform”– the biggest expansion of government power over banks and private markets since the Great Depression.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the 2,300-page law– crafted by Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., and Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass.– requires no fewer than 243 new rules by 11 federal agencies. “A general attack on our free enterprise system,” is how a frustrated U.S. Chamber of Commerce describes the law that will make it tougher for consumers and small businesses to borrow money.
Critics have focused on the bill’s costs and how it may affect access to credit. They warned that forcing banks to raise more capital will crimp their ability to advance loans, or raise the cost of doing so; tougher derivatives rules could raise the cost of hedging for companies that use these instruments in daily operations. Again, as The Wall Street Journal reports, tougher consumer rules could further pinch credit — especially for people with lower incomes.
Business undermined by greedy politicians
By T.R. Fehrenbach
President Calvin Coolidge said that the business of America was business, for which he was castigated or ridiculed by the aboriginal American intelligentsia.
Coolidge was disdained because he didn’t do much in office, but few presidents did unless faced with wars, rebellion, or other crises.
But the fact is, old Cal was right. Business is the thing most Americans do best, even better than government.
Everything that we do well, after all, depends on American business. Good government, military power, employment, charity, standards of living and serving as refuge to failed societies depend on the health of American enterprise. As business goes, so goes the nation. This should be evident in recessions.
The majority of Americans work and therefore eat and pay taxes because they are involved in some sort of surplus-producing private business, from industry to sales to finance to science and agriculture. Enterprises such as charities, education, and government — non-profits in general — are utterly dependent on profit-making business for funding. You’d think people would grasp this when things get rough.
Obama should be pro-market, not pro-business
By James Pethokoukis
Should the Obamacrats be friendlier to Corporate America? Big Business has certainly amped up its kvetching of late. But it’s not Washington’s job to be pro-business and make nice with CEOs. That smells of crony capitalism and often just means rewarding big campaign contributors with government favors. The better measure of any given Washington policy is whether it respects markets.
To hear many U.S. CEOs tell it the nation’s free enterprise system, as they call it, is faltering. General Electric boss Jeff Immelt, a member of President Barack Obama’s economic advisory board, says government and business are “out of sync.” Ivan Seidenberg, CEO of Verizon and head of the Business Roundtable, complains that “by reaching into virtually every sector of economic life, government is injecting uncertainty into the marketplace and making it harder to raise capital and create new businesses.”
Obama’s Faith in Government Force
By David Harsanyi
With midterm elections approaching, President Barack Obama has gone on the charm offensive, claiming Republicans are demonstrating a “lack of faith in the American people.”
“Faith” often is defined as “having confidence or trust in a person or thing.” In this case, though, faith means adding another $35 billion in unemployment benefits to the infinite intergenerational tab — sometimes referred to as the budget — and mailing out as many checks as possible before Election Day.
Yet the jab is revealing in other ways. To begin with, what mysterious brand of public policy has Obama employed that exemplifies this sacred trust between public officials and the common citizen?
Attacks on Freedom
By John Stossel
Something’s happened to America, and it isn’t good. It’s become easier to get into trouble. We’ve become a nation of a million rules. Not the kind of bottom-up rules that people generate through voluntary associations. Those are fine. I mean imposed, top-down rules formed in the brains of meddling bureaucrats who think they know better than we how to manage our lives.
Cross them, and we are in trouble. Read more
Why we must be free to fail
By Michael Goodwin
At first glance, the idea that we are losing the freedom to fail sounds like a reason to celebrate. Losing the chance to fail should also mean we’re guaranteed to win, right?
Wrong. Misguided social perfectionists have given failure a bad rap, and too many of us have bought into their foolish view.
The economic meltdown of 2008 and 2009 put on vivid display this clash of old versus new American values. Bankruptcy laws were written for this very kind of moment, but many who bet the farm and lost demanded exemptions as America’s addiction to borrowing swiftly morphed into an expectation of bailouts. Trillions of taxpayer dollars and guarantees were poured into the breach.
Letting someone fail when we have the power to prevent it seems so robber-baron-ish, so social Darwinist, especially when the shock waves could ripple across the country. This Gilded Age comes equipped with safety nets for those in danger of losing their gilt.
Wherever you look, failure is an endangered experience. Read more
Business-Power Neglect
This whole debate about government stimulus versus austerity, and the impact of these policies on economic growth, misses a key point: It is business, not government, that creates jobs.
The economic power of business is the missing link in the faux debate that is now raging over spending and deficit policies. A brief look at the recent jobs report for June tells this story. After spending more than $1 trillion through so-called government stimulus, we are at best experiencing a grinding and anemic jobs recovery. Private payrolls are growing slowly. The workweek is again shrinking. And average hourly earnings have declined. The unemployment rate dropped to 9.5 percent, but that’s because 650,000 people left the labor force.
Most troubling, the household survey, which captures small owner-operated business employment, dropped 300,000 following a decline last month. In other words, this leading indicator is moving in the wrong direction. More generally, recent economic data suggest that the rate of recovery could be slowing to only 2 percent, or even less. Some fear a double-dip recession.
So what about all this stimulus spending? Read more
