Economic progress comes from using the available resources to their most productive effect. That’s true of Robinson Crusoe on his island and equally of the 300 million person US economy. Why aren’t we making much progress these days? Because we’re wasting resources on a lot of stuff that has no value, as the writer of this excellent letter in today’s Wall Street Journal explains:
LETTERS
The Economy Is Better, but Could It Be Much Better?
As a private investor, I believe the reason Obamanomics has failed is clear. The government continues to spend taxpayer money without creating any value in return for our investment; funding failed government agencies to manage a bloated bureaucracy creates no value. Funding state deficits without a commensurate cut in state spending creates no value. Increasing the cost of healthcare and regulatory burdens to small business creates no value. Taking over a distressed business to support a protected political class, yet failing to fundamentally change its broken business model, creates no value.
The only way an economy can prosper is when its people create goods and services that others want to buy. This government sells deficits, money printing in the extreme, cronyism, political expediency, and an ideology that is detrimental to capital risk taking. We investors are not buying anything that the government is selling.
John P. Vota
Cincinnati
