Market Correction

5 November 2008

Editor, Washington Times

Dear Editor:

Re "Obama wins presidency" (November 5): to all persons who understand that freer markets bring greater prosperity, I offer a reason to applaud Obama's defeat of McCain.

A President McCain would have followed Bush's script: singing (uninformed and poorly articulated) paeans to free markets while simultaneously meddling and spending in harmful ways. Nevertheless - with popular attention on the song rather than on the substance - the problems caused by these intrusions would have been blamed on "free market fundamentalism" or even laissez-faire capitalism. At least Pres. Obama's destructive policies will not unjustly give capitalism a bad name.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University

4 November 2008

Editor, The Wall Street Journal
200 Liberty Street
New York, NY 10281

To the Editor:

Andrew Wilson is right: the New Deal did not end the Great Depression ("Five Myths About the Great Depression," November 4). No less an authority than FDR's Treasury secretary and close friend, Henry Morgenthau, conceded this fact to Congressional Democrats in May 1939: "We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong ... somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises.... I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started.... And an enormous debt to boot!"*

Indeed, FDR's market-suffocating policies are almost surely what put the "Great" in "Great Depression."

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University

* Burton Folsom, Jr., New Deal or Raw Deal? (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008), p. 2.

3 November 2008

Editor, Washington Post
1150 15th St., NW
Washington, DC 20071

Dear Editor:

You're inspired by Bob Schieffer's recollection of his mother's advice: "go vote now. It will make you feel big and strong" ("Vote!" November 3).

This attitude reflects the myth that political action is as noble, or even nobler, than private actions. Much more so than if I vote, I feel big and strong when I act consistently to be a loving father, husband, son, and brother - when I help my friends - when I perform well at my job - when I pay my bills - in short, when I take responsibility for matters that are within my control.

Ironically, this voting that allegedly makes us feel "big and strong" often results in government relieving us of responsibility for those things that each of us can and should control, while giving each of us an officious say in matters that ought properly be the exclusive responsibility of each of our fellow citizens.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University

1 November 2008

Editor, The New York Times
229 West 43rd St.
New York, NY 10036

To the Editor:

Dr. Marcia Angell argues that John McCain is wrong to predict that letting individuals shop for their own health insurance would lower premiums: "Anyone who understands how the private health insurance industry operates would know that this is not a workable idea. Individuals have little or no consumer bargaining power, and insurers have no incentive to sell insurance to those most likely to need coverage" (November 1).

This argument is illogical. The very purpose of letting consumers shop for their own health insurance is to give them bargaining power that they are denied under the current regulatory gime. Today's stunted consumer bargaining power, far from a natural condition of a freer market in insurance, is an artifact of the restrictions that Mr. McCain's plan would ease.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University

31 October 2008

Editor, Washington Post
1150 15th St., NW
Washington, DC 20071

Dear Editor:

E.J. Dionne premises his "Referendum on Trickle-Down" (October 31) on the belief that middle-class Americans have stagnated economically for the past several years. This belief is mistaken.

Minneapolis Fed Senior Economist Terry Fitzgerald just published new research adjusting for factors such as the shrinkage in size of the average household and for increases in non-wage compensation.* He reports that "Careful analysis shows that the [inflation-adjusted] incomes of most types of middle American households have increased substantially over the past three decades." Mr. Fitzgerald estimates that, during this period, the real income of America's median household grew between 44 to 62 percent. And much more than half of this increase is due, not to women entering the work force, but to rising real wages for both women and men.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University

* Terry J. Fitzgerald, “Where Has All the Income Gone?” The Region, Minneapolis Fed, Sept. 2008; it’s available here:
http://www.minneapolisfed.org/research/economists/staff_display_pubs_papers.cfm?id=365

Dear Ms. __________

Thanks for your e-mail. I'm glad that you agree with me that Barack Obama endorses many positions that are legitimately labeled "socialist." You and I, however, disagree on the merits of socialism (whether full-throttle or lite).

You claim that "at least socialism moves us as a nation closer to caring for one and other..... Capitalism is greed and socialism is neighborliness. I say the more socialism the better!!!"

You're confusing political sound bites with reality. Of course it's true that politicians who seek greater government control over our economic affairs profess motives of the loveliest and purest sort. These advocates of more government power (and, correspondingly, of less individual freedom) assure you that they care about you and that the armies of bureaucrats mobilized to run the economy will care about you.

But seriously Ms. _______, what reason do you have to suppose that Barack Obama and the teams of government officials necessary to implement socialist polices care about you? They don't even know you.

And do you think that you will care more deeply about those strangers who receive a greater share of the income you earn and then pay in taxes? Do you think that strangers who pay more taxes to subsidize you will thereby care more about you?

Do you think that forcing people to behave as if they care about strangers really means that they DO care about strangers?

Caring for others is a wonderful and precious human ability, but it's something that necessarily is a personal achievement. We can care meaningfully only for those individuals with whom we have some personal and real connections.

Such genuine caring is threatened and mocked by hordes of strangers seeking power by falsely promising to 'care' for us or to 'unite' us all -- ultimately at gunpoint -- into a more-caring nation.

I don't care what you call it: government force is force, not 'caring.'

Don Boudreaux