No one person has all of the necessary information to do a better job than the market in allocating scarce resources. That?s why the TIME cover story headline ?How the Next President Should Fix the Economy? makes me groan.
Justin Fox offers the following (unattributed) assessment of the current economic circumstances:
Economic eras don’t last forever, though, and there are signs that the current slowdown is a harbinger of something bigger: an end to America’s 25-year love affair with tax cuts and deregulation. A lot of the cracks that have emerged during that time, because of global economic shifts or our own neglect, have become impossible to ignore ? stagnant incomes, a federal budget gone way out of balance, soaring energy prices, a once-in-a-lifetime housing crash and growing financial risks in retirement and from health care.
Not only does Fox ignore the fact that the ?love affair? with tax cuts is not a relic of the Reagan era (liberal demigod JFK liked them, too). He also fails to follow this paragraph with any discussion of how higher tax rates and increased regulation would do anything to solve the problems he lists.
