THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XI, Issue # 128, May 19, 2009
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
GOVERNMENT IS BAD FOR BUSINESS
By Alan Caruba
THE ADVERSE IMPACT OF GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION INTO A NATION'S ECONOMY: THE POOR PERFORMANCE OF
AN ECONOMY CONTROLLED, DIRECTED, & TIGHTLY REGULATED BY THE COUNTRY'S CENTRAL GOVERNMENT -- WHAT
HAPPENS TO INDUSTRY & BUSINESS WHEN ATTEMPTS ARE MADE BY GOVERNMENT TO REPLACE THE PRINCIPLES OF
MARKET CAPITALISM & THE LAWS OF THERMODYNAMICS WITH SOME LEFTWING OR OTHER RADICAL POLITICAL
IDEOLOGY -- THE ECONOMIC GROWTH & PROSPERITY OF A FREE ECONOMY VERSUS THE ECONOMIC STAGNATION &
DECLINE RESULTING FROM A NATIONAL PUBLIC POLICY OF STATISM, THAT IS, CENTRAL CONTROL & DIRECTION OF THE
ECONOMY BY THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT -- ECONOMIC FREEDOM VERSUS ECONOMIC REGIMENTATION
FULL STORY:
Why would the leaders of U.S. automobile manufacturing companies, two of whom are facing bankruptcy, gather
around President Barack Hussein Obama as he signed legislation requiring higher mileage per gallon, when surely
each knew that there is a finite amount of energy to be secured from a single gallon of gasoline?
They knew, too, they would have to build smaller, lighter, deadlier cars for anyone driving or who is a passenger in
them; if, indeed, anyone will want to buy them or will be able to afford to buy them, since their cost will increase with
this new useless, senseless government mandate.
To meet a 35.5-mile-per-gallon standard by 2016, they might as well make cars out of papier-mâché. The new
standards are yet another environmentalist delusion that the laws of thermodynamics can be replaced by political
ideology. Approximately 40,000 Americans die on the highways every year. Watch that number increase as the new
standards kick in.
You and every other American is being taken for a fool, because those who conjure up the stupidity these standards
represent know you were never taught enough in school to understand what a fraud is being perpetrated against you.
This is why they can get away with airy references to “green jobs,” “clean energy,” and the greatest absurdity, an
“energy independent” America -- an America that, currently, is forced to import much of its energy because
U.S.-based natural resources have been put off-limits by the U.S. government.
Over the course of my long career as a public relations counselor, one lesson in particular has been learned. In general,
people who run businesses run scared. When under attack, their first instinct is to lay low and their next instinct is to
make any changes foisted upon them, even if they are based on bad science or lack common sense.
There’s a reason why you see television ads talking about the need for “all forms” of energy. They are the way energy
providers are attempting to stem the tide of anti-energy rhetoric pouring out of the White House and Congress, while
educating the public to the reality of how and where the energy they use is actually produced.
No coal? Half the electricity we use is generated by coal. No oil? All the gasoline is refined from oil, along with all the
plastics we use. No natural gas? It heats millions of homes. Nuclear? It is good for twenty percent of our electricity.
Usually, businesses and agricultural interests band together in trade associations to fight against injurious legislation.
Washington, D.C., is home to a legion of government relations executives and agencies whose job is to spot trouble
early and to convince legislators to avoid signing onto bad legislation or to modify it before it becomes the law.
Without them, Americans would be suffering even more, due to the idiotic legislation that is generated daily in
Congress.
While the natural conflict of competition is the air corporate executives breathe, any conflict involving the U.S.
government is necessarily buffered by lawyers, government relations specialists, and public relations professionals
whose job it is to present the side of the argument the mainstream media generally ignores or distorts.
Corporate executives are not cowards. They do battle every day to increase their company’s profit margin, to protect its
reputation among investors and with financial institutions, and to fund research and innovation. They also work hard to
hire the best people and to keep them motivated and happy. That’s what bonuses are about and countless other
programs corporations provide their employees. It’s good for business!
Congress, whenever it wants to intimidate some element of the business community, will drag its leaders to Washington
and then grill them mercilessly for the purpose of making them look evil. It is always a charade. Behind closed doors,
these same politicians can be found imploring the same corporations to give them campaign money.
In these times, corporations have much to fear. Americans have elected a President who regards business and industry
as the exploitation of workers, forgetting that they benefit employees, vendors, investors, pension funds, healthcare
programs, and, of course, consumers.
President Obama distrusts hedge funds and others who have made loans to businesses. He feels empowered to order
the resignation of executives, alter the composition of corporate boards, and abrogate fundamental contract law. This is
a man who has never so much as run a local Dairy Queen franchise!
It is useful to remember that virtually all of the recessions and the Great Depression were brought about, not by
corporations and small businesses, but by government interference, usually involving exports and imports, but also by
giving support to labor unions that, as often as not, saddled businesses with demands that slowed production and
drained profits needed for growth.
It was not the financial community that came up with the notion of giving sub-prime mortgage loans to people who
would, under normal banking practices, not qualify. That was a government idea. The fact that Fannie Mae and Freddie
Mac ended up owning half of all the mortgages was a government idea.
Bailouts to banks, insurance companies, and automobile companies were government ideas, but not constitutional ones.
So far, the evidence suggests they were bad ideas.
Capitalism is a high risk venture. That’s what it’s supposed to be. Most start-up companies fail fairly quickly, but some
grow and prosper. They expand and hire more people.
By contrast, all of us would benefit from a smaller, less intrusive government.
When corporations must deal with the government, they are understandably wary and sometimes even fearful. They
have reason to be.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Political Economy -- Philosophies, Systems, & Public Policies:
Government, the Economy, & Economic Prosperity
Political Environmentalism Versus Human Progress & Prosperity:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
The American Political & Cultural Left:
Liberals, Statists, Socialists, Marxists, & Other Leftists:
The Democratic Party, Academia, & the Mainstream Media
Liberalism Versus Conservatism in American Politics
-------------------------
POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY & POLITICAL IDEOLOGIES:
COMPETING SYSTEMS OF POLITICAL THOUGHT
Conservatism
Traditional Conservatism: Questions & Answers
Conservatism: Attitudes, Types, & Present Status
Constitutional Conservatism: American & British
Liberalism
Classical Liberalism: Intellectual Foundations
Classical Liberalism: Conservative Liberalism
Manchester Liberalism & Social Darwinism
Modern Social "Liberalism": Statist "Liberalism"
Radical & Totalitarian Ideologies
Radicalism, Utopianism, & Totalitarianism
Alan Caruba is a veteran business, science and political writer, a Public Relations Counselor, and Founder of the National
Anxiety Center, a clearinghouse for information about media-driven scare campaigns. Caruba writes a weekly commentary,
"Warning Signs," posted on the Internet website of the National Anxiety Center, which is located at
www.anxietycenter.com.
Caruba has a daily blog at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com.
Caruba’s most recent book, Right Answers: Separating Fact from Fantasy, has been published by Merril Press. Books
previously authored by Caruba include A Pocket Guide to Militant Islam, The United Nations Versus the United States: The
UN's Plan to Control Planet Earth, and America: A Nation Without Borders -- A Pocket Guide to Immigration Issues.
© Alan Caruba 2009
Published with Permission of Alan Caruba
ACaruba@AOL.Com
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Conservative & Free-Market Analysis of Government, Politics & Public Policy, Covering Political, Legal, Constitutional, Economic,
Cultural, Military, International, Strategic, & Geopolitical Issues
Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity