Wednesday, October 07, 2009

The Economy Needs Oxygen, But There Is Oxygen and Then There Is Oxygen

I agree wholeheartedly with Larry Kudlow that a "Mundell-Laffer" solution would provide oxygen to the economy. But this oxygen is of the variety that you see athletes taking during a game - a supplementary supply pumped into an athlete's body otherwise operating normally. The type of oxygen that the US economy needs right now is the variety that flows in when an assailant removes his hands from your throat. The administration and the congressional Democrats have have unleashed attacks on the structural incentives that shape economic activity as well as shameless, naked direct attacks on individual businesses and business owners that have been so broad and so relentless, they amount to a chokehold on economic growth. I have been beating this drum incessantly here. A strong dollar and supply side tax cuts will not do the trick when the very notion of profit is suspect as a philosophical starting point and government is wielding a thuggish hand against business in pursuit of its social aims. A Mundell-Laffer solution is for the day when we are contemplating how to regain our economic dominance in the world, not for today, when we are desparately groping about for stability. First order of business for the administration is call off the dogs and take their hands off the throats of America's businesses large and small. Like Larry, I don't hold out much hope for a change in current course. The only solution is a reordering of the policy direction that comes with elections. We are stuck in the mud until either Obama or his congressional majority are gone.

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