A Stake?
3 December 2008
Editor, Toledo Blade
Dear Editor:
Detroit auto executives advocate "government getting a stake in the auto companies that would allow taxpayers to share in future gains if they recover" ("GM exec: bankruptcy not an option for industry," December 3).
I remind these executives that each American is already perfectly free and able, with no action from government, to "get a stake" in these companies. Of course, few Americans now choose to do so - a fact that reflects the considered judgment of millions of people that these companies are unworthy recipients of investment funds. If millions of investors, spending their own funds, refuse to invest in GM, Ford, and Chrysler, why should Congress force them to make such investments? Why should we trust that Congress will make wiser investment decisions with other people's money than these people themselves make with their own money?
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
Enterprise Hall
George Mason University
"Sadistic Anti-Capitalists"
2 December 2008
Editor, The Wall Street Journal
200 Liberty Street
New York, NY 10281
To the Editor:
Detroit auto executives persistently plead for Uncle Sam to bail them out - in part from the consequences of regulatory burdens that Uncle Sam himself imposed ("Auto Makers Detail Restructuring Plans," December 2). This unsavory spectacle calls to mind an observation by the great Depression-era journalist Dorothy Thompson, who wrote during the height of the New Deal that "Unfortunately our policies are made by people who are often sadistic anti-capitalists.... They seem to think that the way to socialize any industry is first to bankrupt it and then socialize the losses."
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University
Beware What You Hope For
2 December 2008
Editor, The New York Times
229 West 43rd St.
New York, NY 10036
To the Editor:
Bob Herbert wants President Obama to "begin addressing on day one the interests of those who are not rich and who have not had the ear of those in power" ("A Team of Whizzes," December 2). Sounds reasonable - but it's not.
In a free society prosperity is achieved by persons who take initiative for themselves - persons who do not sit around, brandishing excuses, waiting for their needs to be "addressed" by Great Leaders. Insofar as any person's needs become the responsibility of the state, two consequences are inevitable. First, and worst, that person loses his or her resourcefulness and dignity. Second, he or she suffers the perpetual risk that, as the winds of politics shift and economic reality collects its dues, the once-provident state becomes uninterested in "addressing” those needs or increasingly unable to do so.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University
Outlier?
30 November 2008
Editor, The New York Times Book Review
229 West 43rd St.
New York, NY 10036
To the Editor:
Reviewing Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers, David Leonhardt favorably quotes the author: "We look at the young Bill Gates and marvel that our world allowed that 13-year-old to become a fabulously successful entrepreneur.... But that's the wrong lesson. Our world only allowed one 13-year-old unlimited access to a time-sharing terminal in 1968. If a million teenagers had been given the same opportunity, how many more Microsofts would we have today?" ("Chance and Circumstance," November 30).
True. But Gladwell misses the larger point. In a world of many Microsofts, Bill Gates would be no outlier. But that world would still have its own outliers - individuals succeeding well beyond the average.
Although our economy isn't perfect, it does give unprecedented opportunities to such a large number of people that our economy overflows with successes that would be outliers in less productive economies. Alas, we overlook that which is common. The successful clothing retailer, sheet-metal producer, flower importer, medical-device inventor, window-blind merchant, local radio personality - the immense productivity of these and countless other persons, and the standard of living they achieve, appear to us to be unexceptional because we take for granted the extraordinary productivity and accompanying prosperity that today's economy makes possible as a matter of routine.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University<
Run the Country?
29 November 2008
Editor, Washington Post
1150 15th St., NW
Washington, DC 20071
Dear Editor:
In Peter Funt's otherwise sensible op-ed, he writes that Barack Obama was elected to "run the country" (“Tapped Out,” November 29). This familiar phrase is nonsensical.
No one "runs the country." No one could POSSIBLY "run the country." No president or Congress tells us when to awaken in the morning, what jobs to take, how hard to work, how or if to fix the porch swing, when to marry or divorce. No Great Leader decides when we have children, what we eat for dinner, what music we put on our iPods, or what books we read. Every decision we make in life is individual, our own. These decisions are affected in part, of course, by taxes and regulations, but mostly they are guided by forces thankfully beyond the reach of pompous meddlers - forces such as cultural norms, market prices, and each of our own unique needs and dreams.
The President of the United States runs only one branch of one government in America. That official no more "runs" the country than does the President of Ralston-Purina or the bouncer at a local bar.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University
Big Brother?
28 November 2008
Editor, USA Today
Dear Editor:
Your editorial headlined “Our view on Black Friday: Is your cashier cranky? Big Brother may be watching” (Nov. 28) caused me to think that government is using private retailers to snoop on citizens. But no: you're referring simply to the fact that private retailers gather information electronically about how quickly their cashiers serve customers.
I have no idea whether or not such monitoring is a profitable business practice. More to the point, despite your self-confident pronouncement to the contrary, nor do you. A great beauty of economic competition is that it DISCOVERS what consumers like and don't like. And it discovers this reality far more reliably than editor's-chair theorizing - or politicians'-chair theorizing - can ever do.
Unlike the real Big Brother who relentlessly spies to make The People better serve him, information gathering by private enterprises not only is easily avoided, but is done to enable private enterprises to better serve The People.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University
