Interventionism

Clinton says he knows how to end the cycle of boom and bust.

Financial instability and anti-capitalist fallacies about booms and busts. 

Agriculture Secretary Daniel Glickman has been deeply troubled by perceived problems with America's food supply. In a meeting with the Senate Agricultural Committee last fall, Glickman urged lawmakers to approve legislation which would give his department more enforcement authority over cases of contaminated meat and poultry. Among other provisions, he demanded that the department be able to impose fines of $100,000 per day on violators of meat-processing regulations. "I think we can come down a little more strongly on the side of the consumer," the secretary told senators.

In the midst of an economic boom, strange things were happening at General Motors. Huge swatches of its highly paid, coddled, unionized labor force were on strike. The result was catastrophic: GM plants all over North America shut down.

How capitalism came to mean big profits but not big losses. 

 Why should attorneys be given special legal privileges?

Let us just say we abolish all federal labor law. What happens then?

Downturns have an upside. The Fed should not intervene to stop them.

Can government do a better job than private markets in any area of the economy? Consider: The tax-funded Human Genome Project, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, has been the toast of the scientific elite for nearly a decade. It held out the promise of mapping of the entire structure of DNA, which in turn would lead to unparalleled medical breakthroughs and a new era for biotechnology.

Can government do a better job than the market in any area of the economy?