The Age of Folly

How about a bit of reality? Not the ridiculous promises from Washington: the absurd talk of “green shoots” while unemployment soars and investment falls; the silly guarantees that GM has a bright future, even as its stock price falls to less than the price of a Snickers bar; the nonsense about how if we spend more and inflate more, recovery will come tomorrow morning. The war on recession is a flop. Fail, fail, fail.

Oh Please. Can you believe it?

This is Greenspan, the former head of the Fed, whose job it is to keep the entire banking system afloat despite its inherent bankruptcy: “Government guarantees of the liabilities of institutions viewed as too big to fail thwarts the competitive process that produces capital efficiency,Of all the regulatory challenges that have emerged out of this crisis, I view the [“too big to fail”} problem and the…precedents, now fresh in everyone’s mind, as the most threatening to market

How Much? It’s Political, Now.

It probably began with the 50 or so statewide unions barring anyone who didn’t pass the state exam from pronouncing accounting opinions. It hit high gear when FDR’s Congress (and it WAS FDR’s Congress) established the Securities and Exchange Commission and put crooked Joseph P. Kennedy in charge of it.
Then came Enron and the establishment of the government’s accounting standards board, supplanting that of the American Institute of Certified (by the state) Public Accountants, known as the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB).

What Business Management Is and What It Is Not

It is a serious mistake to identify entrepreneurship with management as in the popular antithesis of “management” and “labor.” This confusion is, of course, intentional. It is designed to obscure the fact that the functions of entrepreneurship are entirely different from those of the managers attending to the minor details of the conduct of business. There is furthermore a readiness to confuse the manager with a bureaucrat.

Response to the “Market Failure” Drones

Now that we’re living through the bust, many people are listening. That’s why it’s so important for economists of the Austrian School to redouble their efforts, whether in terms of writing, public speaking, media, or indeed whatever platform they can get, to promote a sound, free-market interpretation of what’s happening. The drones who exist to repeat clichés about market failure need a robust and energetic reply from people who know what they’re talking about.

The Folly of the National Sales Tax

Facing a historic national debt that President Obama correctly characterized as “unsustainable,” yet still desiring to implement some sort of national health-care package, US policymakers, notably Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad and former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, have recently hinted at the possibility of a national sales tax.

General Motors, RIP

General Motors was once not only the world’s greatest and most prosperous automobile company but the world’s greatest and most prosperous manufacturing company, indeed, the world’s greatest and most prosperous company of any kind. Its success, wealth, and economic power, were symbolic of the success, wealth, and economic power of the United States.

Cars and Government: Bad Mix

The former Car Czar of Romania, writing in the WSJ, talks about his experience in trying to manufacture cars under socialism. He extends his analysis to the Jaguar in Britain to show how governments in capitalist countries can’t do it either. His analysis centers on two features of car socialism: the technical ignorance of the planners and the inevitable politicization of design and distribution plans.

Obama, Autos, and Antitrust

I find it ironic that the Obama administration says that it is going to ramp up antitrust prosecutions of beleaguered American businesses. After all, it seems to me that Barack Obama is the de facto chairman of both Chrysler and General Motors simultanously, which surely would be a violation of antitrust law.

Gee, is Obama declaring himself to be above the law? Surely not!

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