It’s just one more example of his profound ignorance of economics.
2 thoughts on “The Zero-Sum President”
If a German discovers a cure for cancer, shouldn’t we be ecstatic about that, rather than angry? Indeed, shouldn’t we be quite happy and interested in ensuring that Germans and Britons and Indians have the capability and opportunity to develop fantastic new technologies?
We should be happy because then we can “innovate” that cure for cancer into a generic version and sell it for reduced prices in our market. Of course that might be bad for the German firm that spent all that time and money on R&D but it is not like anyone cares about our companies that might be in a similar situation.
The rhetorical pandermonkey-in-chief would do better if he’d shake the idea that America’s vision is to stay ahead of everybody else, as if the world is a footrace. Our vision is to climb the mountain of freedom and prosperity, regardless of who happens to take point and any particular moment. We’ll climb while everyone else is milling around at base camp, knowing that many will see us and follow, and we’ll follow the lead of anyone who’s found a faster route, as we did when we were catching up to Europe. The goal is to keep improving, and to improve as fast as we can, because we directly benefit from that.
If we’re in the lead, others can take advantage of the routes we’ve found and the climbing anchors we leave in place, letting everyone else climb faster, too, often faster than our initial push. This keeps everyone grouped closer together for mutual benefit (we get Porsches and Blue-ray players that wouldn’t otherwise exist), and that helps us as well as them.
But instead of presenting us with that, or Reagan’s shining beacon on a hill, Obama spoke down to his envisioned average American, a xenophobic Joe Six Pack clinging to God and religion who thinks improvements in the standard of living come from chanting “USA! USA!”
His speech also, as was noted, flowed directly from the juvenile notion that economics is a zero-sum game, a view that’s foundational to the socialist (and Fascist, communist, and Nazi) idea that capitalist nations got their wealth by exploiting poor, working class nations. Not only is Obama deluded about the economics of trade, he showed his perfectly willing to try and screw over other nations if it will help him get re-elected. I conclude that his speech showed that he is both intellectually and morally bankrupt, and given what he’s done to our debt, he wins the bankruptcy trifecta.
We should be happy because then we can “innovate” that cure for cancer into a generic version and sell it for reduced prices in our market. Of course that might be bad for the German firm that spent all that time and money on R&D but it is not like anyone cares about our companies that might be in a similar situation.
The rhetorical pandermonkey-in-chief would do better if he’d shake the idea that America’s vision is to stay ahead of everybody else, as if the world is a footrace. Our vision is to climb the mountain of freedom and prosperity, regardless of who happens to take point and any particular moment. We’ll climb while everyone else is milling around at base camp, knowing that many will see us and follow, and we’ll follow the lead of anyone who’s found a faster route, as we did when we were catching up to Europe. The goal is to keep improving, and to improve as fast as we can, because we directly benefit from that.
If we’re in the lead, others can take advantage of the routes we’ve found and the climbing anchors we leave in place, letting everyone else climb faster, too, often faster than our initial push. This keeps everyone grouped closer together for mutual benefit (we get Porsches and Blue-ray players that wouldn’t otherwise exist), and that helps us as well as them.
But instead of presenting us with that, or Reagan’s shining beacon on a hill, Obama spoke down to his envisioned average American, a xenophobic Joe Six Pack clinging to God and religion who thinks improvements in the standard of living come from chanting “USA! USA!”
His speech also, as was noted, flowed directly from the juvenile notion that economics is a zero-sum game, a view that’s foundational to the socialist (and Fascist, communist, and Nazi) idea that capitalist nations got their wealth by exploiting poor, working class nations. Not only is Obama deluded about the economics of trade, he showed his perfectly willing to try and screw over other nations if it will help him get re-elected. I conclude that his speech showed that he is both intellectually and morally bankrupt, and given what he’s done to our debt, he wins the bankruptcy trifecta.