Beloved Leader Obama likes to be compared with FDR, but the president he really ought to emulate is Warren Harding. The economy was in shambles when he took office in 1921. Fortunately, he listened to advisers like Andrew Mellon who said that the best course was for the federal government to cut spending, cut taxes, and do nothing to impede the process of the free market in directing resources to their most productive uses.

Tom Woods recounts the successful Harding laissez-faire approach here.

Of course, if Obama ever entertained for a microsecond the idea of allowing the free market to work, Rahm Emanuel would upbraid him for “letting a crisis go to waste.” Those who yearn for an ever more powerful government relish crises as an opportunity to grab more wealth and power.