Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
Economies never succeed with only self-regulation
Recently when Ben Bernanke announced the Federal Reserve's position on the economy, the radical conservatives and Romney went ballistic.
The approved conservative game plan is to do nothing that might give Obama credit, regardless of whether or not it is good for the country.
The conservative policy to address our recession is tax cuts and eliminate environmental regulations that strangle the economy.
Economists liberal and conservative agree that further tax cuts for the 1 percent will do nothing to help our economy and there is no evidence that environmental regulations hinder the economy.
In conservative political ads, they stress the failure of Solyandra, a solar energy startup backed by the government, but never mention the massive failures of the market that caused the recession.
Returns on government investments in research has been very high. The average social returns on government investment in research and development is over 50 percent, far higher than other investments including private sector R&D.
Some successes: Internet, Human Genome Project, jet planes.
Governments have been involved with large successful economies over centuries. There have been no large successful economies without government being involved.
The Great Depression of the 1930s brought about regulations of the financial industry that produced a crisis-free era in the economy. The "free" market ideology started coming back with the Reagan era.
Government's role is to make and enforce the rules to keep the markets fair and non-destructive.
Sports could not function without rules and officials. Markets have proved numerous times, in 2008 most recently, that they cannot be self regulating.
The conservative economist Milton Freidman said it was ridiculous for government to never do anything to help the economy. Warren Buffett said "there's been class warfare going on for the last 20 years and my class has won."
Leon Logan
Tucumcari