Category Archives: Economics

At Some Point…

…you have grabbed enough power:

The Founders of the United States were deep students of politics and history, and they shared Aristotle’s concern. Up through their time, history had shown all known democracies to be “incompatible with personal security or the rights of property.” James Madison and others held that the “first object of government” was to protect the rights of property. Numerous provisions of the Constitution and Bill of Rights were incorporated to protect the property rights of citizens from the power of the government.

Whatever else might be said about him, President Obama operates on a different philosophy of government from that of the Founders. As Michelle Malkin observes, he spoke the most revealing and clarifying 10 words of his administration this week: “I think at some point you have made enough money.”

The Founders thought that at some point the government had enough power. Obama, however, is a devout believer in unlimited government. The common denominator among so-called health care reform and financial regulatory reform as well as Obama’s other big proposals is the augmented power they confer on the government in general and the executive branch in particular.

But don’t call him a socialist.

The Entrepreneur

…and the minimum wage.

It’s a shame that we have economic ignorami running the country. What’s particularly stupid about a federal minimum wage is that it’s one-size-fits-all in a country with a wide disparity of living costs. And the degree to which it keeps the young and unskilled from reaching even the first rung of the career ladder is criminal, and a major reason that unemployment is so high among young people in the inner city. But they keep voting these morons in.