Shlaes Reminds Us of the Cost of Government Arrogance

Excellent piece today by Amity Shlaes, disabusing us of our current New Deal nostalgia. Did you know, for example, that FDR set the price of gold daily at his breakfast table, based upon his own "lucky numbers?" (Shlaes' latest book, "The Forgotten Man" is up there on my reading list for '09.)

Make no mistake: Barack Obama, often compared to FDR on the basis of his nascent popularity and his big spending plans, has absolutely no idea how to fix the American economy. He and his administration minions will "experiment" and tinker like Roosevelt, because, like Roosevelt, they are supremely confident in their own competence.

Shlaes reminds us of the remarkable arrogance and folly of such an approach.

The answer to economic growth is simple. Get out of the way. Animal spirits in the marketplace create growth, not government. Government redistributes resources via coercion, which produces nothing at its best and destroys productive resources at its worst.

Sadly, it seems likely that we will have to suffer for at least 24 months, until the midterm Congressional elections, and perhaps more, if the Republican Party cannot rid itself of its pathetic, grasping leadership and return to its roots in classical free market economics and limited constitutional government.