My Beauty Best Teacher

Here is what Richard A. Epstein, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Professor of Law at New York University Law School, and senior lecturer at the University of Chicago, had to say regarding the major speech that President Barack Obama (one-term Democrat) gave at Osawatomie, Kansas:

The painful ignorance that is revealed in these remarks augurs ill for the long-term recovery of America. With the president firmly determined to set himself against the tides of progress, innovation will be harder to come by. The levels of unemployment will continue to be high as the president works overtime to impose additional restrictions on the labor markets and more taxes at the top of the income distribution—both backhanded ways to reward innovation and growth.

The problem, therefore, with the president’s speech is not that it is demagogic in tone. The problem is that it is intellectually incoherent. As a matter of high principle, the president announces his fealty to markets. As a matter of practical politics, he denigrates and undermines them at every step. It is a frightening prospect to have a president who lives in a time warp that lets him believe that the failed policies of 1935 can lead this nation back from the brink. His chosen constituency, the middle class, should tremble at the prospect that his agenda might well set the course for the United States for the next four years.

In Professor Epstein's analysis of President Obama's speech, he echo's some of the comments that I have been making on liberal blogs like Balloon Juice and others- that in spite of his rhetoric and because of his economic incoherence and illiteracy, workers, school teachers, union employees, blue collar employees, the middle class, supporters of Occupy Wall Street, and related groups are going to suffer the most from President Obama's policies.

As Epstein wrote in his article Populist-in-Chief:

It is a good thing when plants can achieve the same output with less labor. Do we really want an America in which thousands of people work in dangerous occupations to turn molten lava into steel bars? Far better it is that fewer workers are doing those jobs. The jobs lost in that industry will be in part replaced by newer jobs created in the firms that build the equipment that make it possible to run steel mills at a lower cost and far lower risk of personal injury. The former workers can seek jobs in newer industries that will only expand by competing for labor.

And what about those ATM machines? Does the president really want people to have to queue up in banks to make deposits or withdraw cash in order to make a boom market for human tellers? Perhaps we should return to the days before automation, when phone calls were all connected by human operators. And why blast the Internet, which has created far more useful jobs than it has ever destroyed?

You see, if President Obama had his way, we would return to the Great Depression, when people were dependent on government for goods and services because government was in the business of destroying productive business around the world. If President Obama had his way, he would increase taxes and regulations on businesses while giving out subsidies and tax breaks to favored businesses, favoring those who hire lobbyists and special interest groups who redirect wealth over those who create wealth and make products or sell goods and services. If President Barack Obama had his way- a Congress of Democrats that went along with his ideas and ideals- America would be dragged back to the early 1900's, when we had a low standards of living and shorter life spans, and Obama would happily fill up dangerous and inefficient steal mills with 'workers', he would sign praises to the joy of labor while factory workers worked for low wages (compared to today) in dangerous industries, and the working class would have few goods (like cheap cars coming in from the Far East, cheap electronics built in backward nations around the world, and labor-saving devices everywhere built everywhere) just so that he could burnish his protectionist credentials.

When government gets in the business of redirecting wealth and picking and choosing the winners and losers in society, the only people who win and get wealthy are government officials- this lesson has been demonstrated over and over around the world many times over. And yet, that is exactly what Barack Obama and his Democratic Party are proposing to do- increase the power of the government to control wealth, liberty, and property in our society, and that somehow through this 'workers' and the '99%' will get more wealthy and happier. The logic is not explained, the mechanisms by which wealth is created are not explained- rather, the logic is the same logic that is found in every despotic tyranny throughout history- people have earned things that others want, and the government will get those things by playing one side off the other. Obama's magic act of wealth creation is the same sort of tyranny that the world has seen many times over- and has fallen for many times over as well.

Our nation has not only learned nothing from the Great Depression, we have learned the wrong lessons as well (see my post Lessons from Economic Recessions- Introduction and Great Depression), and are going about repeating the same mistakes that turned a recession in 1930 into a Great Depression that lasted to the 1950's (and included in it the collapse of the world into a deadly World War!). We must not allow this guy to enact those same policies- I don't care who does what with the GOP, and it doesn't matter who they are, anyone is an upgrade over this incoherent ideologue whose mind is so filled with mush and mindless platitudes and liberal bumper slogans that he is now unable to effectively design any policies that have a slightly positive effect on anyone.

President Obama, any Democrat who supports him, and any Republican who agrees with his policies needs to join Herbert Hoover on the unemployment line (or better yet, get a job somewhere in the private economy building or making or doing something useful!).

In Ameyaw Debrah, Kofi Akpabli  on 'Ghana's Rum'- Akpeteshie:

He looks at the role of the protectionist British colonialist's who protected their own distillers

courtesy of Joy Online

In the days of yore when Britannia ruled the shore of the Gold Coast they found Apio abominable. The open secret was that Akpeteshie was too competitive for their imported beverages. They knew that leaving the drink all alone would be a marketing disaster for their Jack Daniels and Old Toms. They therefore banned it. Oh yes, they did. So, when in March 1957 Ghana, our beloved country gained independence, Akpeteshie also became free forever.

To its potential for branding a la Russian vodka:

Akpeteshie also has a very serious value proposition- that of faithfully serving Ghanaian traditional culture. From birth through marriage to death, the drink is required for a number of customary rites. It is used to pour libation and at the traditional level, it is part of the fine imposed at arbitrations. If one thinks of what Schnapps (in all it’s glory) is used for today, one should know that Akpeteshie ‘has been there and done that.’

More here
The Scots have their whiskey, the Spanish flaunt their Sherry,Africans should be doing the same.

via Indian Economy Blog

[C]reative human insights are the driving force of our prosperity. By allowing xenophobia and protectionist rent-seekers to restrict the number of people who contribute their ideas to the market process, we inevitably reduce — and perhaps even reverse — the rate of economic growth. Our prosperity will be lower and lower than it would otherwise be.
And this lower rate of economic growth and the correspondingly lower standard of living might well never be revealed by the data.

At the CIPE Anna Nadgrodkiewicz writes:

....many of the roadblocks to Africa’s development have to do with the tendency of governments to be protectionist, interventionist, and perpetuating over-regulation – often in the name of defending the poor but rarely with the result of improving their lot. Meanwhile, more than 80% of poverty reduction in Africa in the past 30 years is directly attributable to economic growth delivered by the private sector, not governments, and often in spite of harmful policies of those governments...[continue reading]

Last year, our nation had a choice for President. On one hand we had a man who sprouted very nice sounding platitudes but lacked experience and had a very extreme voting record. On the other hand we had a man who spoke truthfully about the situation and had a lot of experience and had solid and well thought out policy positions. Sadly, those two were not on the same ballot- the experienced solid conservative lost in the primaries to John McCain. If only we could have had a chance to elect Mitt Romney last election, things might have turned out differently.

That's not to say that there would have been no recession, healthcare would not have been a concern, and Iran would have continued to enrich uranium. If Mitt Romney would have become President instead of Barack Obama, those things would still have happened. But the key question is how would Romney have handled those situations differently than Obama and how those differences might affect our nation.

Some people think there is no difference between the two major parties or think that Romney wasn't really that different than someone like Obama. They are wrong. In many important and key situations Romney would have advocated considerably different policies than Obama, policies that may have led to a shorter and less severe recession, that would have lowered the cost of healthcare, and that would have led to Iran thinking twice about seeking the bomb.

This is not idle thoughts- Mitt Romney wrote an editorial this week in USA Today where he laid out some things he would have done as President differently than Barack Obama. This is why he was and remains my choice for President:

• Repair the stimulus. Freeze the funds that haven't yet been spent and redirect them to immediate, private sector job-creation priorities.
• Create tax incentives that promote business expansion and hiring. For example, install a robust investment tax credit, permit businesses to expense capital purchases made in 2010, and reduce payroll taxes. These will reignite construction, technology and a wide array of capital goods industries, and lead to expanded employment.
• Prove to the global investors that finance America's debt that we are serious about reining in spending and becoming fiscally prudent by adopting limits on non-military discretionary spending and reforming our unsustainable, unfunded entitlements. These are key to strengthening the dollar, reducing the threat of rampant inflation and holding down interest rates.
• Close down any talk of carbon cap-and-trade. It will burden consumers and employers with billions in new costs. Instead, greatly expand our commitment to natural gas and nuclear, boosting jobs now and reducing the export of energy jobs and dollars later.
• Tell the unions that job-stifling "card check" legislation is off the table. Laying new burdens on small business will kill entrepreneurship and job creation.
• Don't allow a massive tax increase to go into effect in 2011 with the expiration of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. The specter of more tax-fueled government spending and the reduction of capital available for small business will hinder investment and business expansion.
• New spending should be strictly limited to items that are critically needed and that we would have acquired in the future, such as new military equipment to support our troops abroad and essential infrastructure at home.
• Install dynamic regulations for the financial sector — rules that are up to date, efficient and not excessively burdensome. But do not so tie up the financial sector with red tape that we lose a vital component of our economic system.
• Open the doors to trade. Give important friends like Colombia favored trade status rather than bow to protectionist demands. Now is the time for aggressive pursuit of opportunities for new markets for American goods, not insular retrenchment.
• Stop frightening the private sector by continuing to hold GM stock, by imposing tighter and tighter controls on compensation, and by pursuing a public insurance plan to compete with private insurers. Government encroachment on free enterprise is depressing investment and job creation.

These are great points and both Republicans and Democrats should get behind Romney and support his bid for President in 2012.

Rainer Chr. Hennig writes about the emerging 'green' protectionist policies of developed world:

Populist solutions that are to satisfy customers, politicians and the European industry alike are therefore surfacing all over Africa's neighbour continent and the main market of its products. And the solutions seem neat and nice - easy to understand and with the potential of creating more work locally. Even the industry starts propagating these solutions.
The victim mainly is Africa, because the message is that, as longer as a product or person is transported, the more energy is wasted unnecessarily. Worst of all is airborne transport, having the highest emissions of climate gases such as CO2. Unluckily, Africa is far away from European markets and poor transcontinental infrastructure puts most products and travellers on an airplane.
All over Europe, therefore, home-grown campaigns are being promoted, attacking Africa's newest and most successful export products. Anti-globalisation activists, "green" politicians, local industry and even occasional experts and scientists head these "buy local" campaign

See related coverage of this subject by Ethan Zuckerman and Alex Steffen
Photo courtesy of Afrol News

Michael Cook at African Liberty writes:

The assumption is that dismantling so-called North-South trade barriers, cancelling subsidies by rich countries to their farmers and manufacturers, and an end to dumping their products on poor countries will provide a quick but enduring fix that will help the poor to trade out of poverty.
On average, sub-Saharan African countries impose a 34% tariff on agricultural products from other African countries and 21% on manufactured goods--the most protectionist region on Earth. International agencies estimate that eliminating such tariffs would generate immediate gains to sub-Saharan economies of $1.2billion...[continue reading]

Is the Government in Accra about to shoot itself and cross-border integration in the foot? Thompson Ayodele and Olusegun Sotola of IPPA write:

The Ghana Investment Protection Council, GIPC, recently revived a regulation that requires foreign-owned businesses based in Ghana to raise at least $300,000 before they are allowed to operate. These measures are imposed to shield indigenous business owners from foreign competitors. This is hinged on the belief that there is a need to curtail the influx of neighbouring countries‘ nationals from crowding out local business interests and creating job loss for Ghanaians.
Although the argument that the policy is designed to witch-hunt the nationals of any country has been debunked by the Ghanaian authorities, industry watchers and experts are not convinced. What is evident in view of the investment pattern is that the regulation is directly aimed at local entrepreneurs from West African countries who want to invest in Ghana and not against Chinese or Indian entrepreneurs whose chunk of foreign investments‘ loans are guaranteed by their governments. Thus, raising the specified amount won‘t be a problem for the Chinese and the Indians. By and large the policy will have more direct bearing on small and medium, scale businesses owned by nationals of West African countries as they do not enjoy the protection offered by their Chinese and Indian counterparts.