Lost in the Noise – How Well Capitalism Can Work

In the past two years, ever since the election of Barack Obama, we’ve been on a crash lesson in Marxist economics. The results haven’t been pretty, as just about everyone can see. At the risk of flagellating a deceased equine, here a few of the highlights (which are actually lowlights) of this curious witch’s brew of big government and crony capitalism: record numbers of Americans on food stamps for the first time, record numbers living in poverty, the slowest recovery from a recession in history, record high federal deficits, low tax revenue, the list goes on.

To borrow a term, unprecedented.

What’s worse is that we’re being bombarded with the negative results of Obamanomics, so much so that we’re in danger of forgetting that there is a way out of this. The constant drumbeat of more government intervention in an effort to reverse course (a noble aspiration that is failing, as the stats show) is drowning out what we need to do, which is to effect a drastic reduction of government and its leech-like effect on the creation of wealth.

Yes Virginia, there really is such a thing as wealth creation. But you’d never know it from listening and reading the Make Believe Media.

Case in point: this article in the New York Times by one Bob Herbert entitled A Terrible Divide. In what I’m sure he and the Times editorial staff think is a well-reasoned missive on the results of Obamanomics, he manages to criticize conservative solutions to the problems that plague us, as though capitalism is at fault for them. Here’s a taste:

Standards of living for the people on the wrong side of the economic divide are being ratcheted lower and will remain that way for many years to come. Forget the fairy tales being spun by politicians in both parties — that somehow they can impose service cuts that are drastic enough to bring federal and local budgets into balance while at the same time developing economic growth strong enough to support a robust middle class. It would take a Bernie Madoff to do that.

“Service cuts?” Would Mr. Herbert be referring to the funding for Planned Parenthood? That same vital service organization currently struggling to fill the gap left by ACORN by assisting in the sex slavery of under-aged girls? The ones fulfilling the vital service of depriving the country of citizens?

Perhaps he’s referring to the National Endowment for the Arts. Or the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Heaven forbid these necessary services have their budgets cut by one penny. The horror of it all…

But I digress. In this one article lays many of the false assumptions that the left wants the unwashed masses to believe. That conservative thought is dragging the country down by daring to take a realistic look at where our tax money is going. Example after vague example spouted by Mr. Herbert and others form the drum circle, providing a soundtrack to the bad acid trip the country is currently having.

What we have here is a failure to communicate, again. By relying on personal opinion instead of actual journalism by the MBM, you know, where a reporter actually reports the facts with a critical eye seeking the truth, we have instead blame placed in the wrong places, and upon the wrong people.

With all the noise, we’re almost losing sight of the virtues of capitalism and all the positive things it can do. Remember the Twentieth Century? That serves as the best example I can make regarding the power of capitalism to fundamentally transform a nation, but in the good way. Never before has any society done more to advance itself and in the process raise the standard of living for the whole world.

We need to remind ourselves that government was much smaller back then. In fact, I believe a case can be made that the larger any government becomes, the less productive the economy becomes as a direct result. The lesson we should be getting from our current sad state of economic affairs is that our own government has finally reached the point that it’s intervention into the free market is seriously preventing the very growth that a large government depends on for its survival.

How strange that the proponents of massive government programs are seemingly unable to see where the money to fund their utopian dream comes from, and as a result, their efforts inevitably starve the government of the funds it needs.

The lesson we should be learning is this: capitalism works best when left alone. By interfering with the free market, government has the real power to twist and distort capitalism until it actually fails. We’re seeing this in action, but I’ve yet to see any concrete action by this administration to stop their anti-capitalist crusade. They are mysteriously unable to see that it is their meddling in the free market that's causing the downturn.

To draw upon President Obama’s favorite metaphor, he has pushed the accelerator pedal of big government to the floor and is now saying he will back off the throttle just a little bit.

But by all appearances, he has turned on the cruise control. We are headed for a tragic wreck that we may not survive if we, the terrified passengers, don’t reach over and turn the ignition off, pull over and say, “You can’t drive anymore.”