The Nutty Professor
I saw this on the Mises forum.
If it is true that higher government taxation depresses job creation and that the government can’t create wealth (only the free market can), …
I’m talking about John E. Schwartz, Page A15 Guest State Economist at the Washington Post.
If you’re a Professor Emeritus, and a public policy economics wonk, shouldn’t you know whether or not the government can create wealth?
What follows is a blue vs. red diatribe about how Democrats are better than Republicans. The view is so simplistic, so asinine…
With no regard to the cycles of credit expansion, with no regard to the amount of regulation apparently the stock market likes a Demonrat more than a Republicon, according to Schwartz. Not to mention, he neglects to give any credit to the legislators and bureaucrats, who surely have a greater effect on budget and policy than the President.
This is stereotypical state worship, where all things flow from Caesar, rather than acknowledging all wealth flowing from the citizens to the Senate. How people who write, preach and (I assume) teach these things find a venue and profession for such ignorance will always bother me.
Professor Schwartz seems to he believe that the government can multiply wealth in a managerial/capital finance role, and yet overlooks the consequences of nearly a century of fiscal and monetary mismanagement, such as enormous public debt, a persistent poverty rate, and a negative savings rate.
Using inflation to shape behavior, the American state has made it unattractive and unprofitable for citizens to save, guaranteeing itself a monopoly as a nation’s capital financier. But we know that the state in a monopoly role always mismanages the wealth it confiscates due to an inability to perform economic calculation (pricing).
Cheering for Demonrats over Republicons as the better steward of stolen property and opportunity isn’t anything to be proud of. And for the reader, it’s not a lesson worth taking away from Professor Schwartz. The next generation and the one after it, doesn’t have a stake in the state or in the blue vs. red game. Their stake is exactly where it should be. In their own self-interest.
Charity (and prosperity) after all, begin at home.
