Nothing, absolutely nothing, has raised more people out of abject poverty than free market capitalism. And I don’t mean a mixed system with some socialism and somewhat free markets here and there. I am talking about the real deal, where prices are free to move, free market CAPITALISM. This stands in direct conflict with what many of us have been taught of course.
I couldn’t agree with Senator Rubio more. The GOP has consistently embraced crony capitalism, just like their Democrat brethren. The Republicans like weapons systems, the Dems like welfare programs. But both parties pick and choose. The object for both clubs is to separate tax dollars from the taxpayers to benefit those who will help a particular politician most. Many in Washington can’t even imagine Washington DC working in a different way.
I know, I know, we’ve been told all our lives that the mounds of regulations business must deal with (and the consumer must pay for) are there for our protection. That if it were not for these laws, children would be working 20 hour days in sweatshops and cars would have wheels which fell off every time we stopped at a stop light. But it’s not true. In fact the main purpose of regulations (though not the sole purpose) is to create barriers to entry for competitors.
Many big businesses have figured out that it’s better to play the game, a game which they can manipulate, than to actually compete in the open market. Why innovate when a company can legislate away the competition?
All too true. Big corporations have deep pockets to both deal with regulation and also to mitigate regs specific to that business. Small business, the bread and butter of the American economy, has no such luxury.
The Affordable Care Act is so complex, and according to Greg Scandlin at The National Center for Policy Analysis, so poorly written, that large pieces of Obamacare just won’t happen because they literally make no sense. (Or demand unicorns.)
The green energy program of the Energy Department having blown up, the administration seems to be moving some of the action to the Small Business Administration (SBA). The plan is start new venture funds there to invest in new companies located in high unemployment areas or operating in education or—what else?—green energy.
