In the 1970's Milton Friedman transformed economics by proving mathematically that Democrats should not interfere with capitalism. He did this by publishing "A Monetary History of The United States." And yet we still have Democrats and Lou Dobbs because, it would seem, intelligence simply does not affect them. One can imagine no other ontogenisis for the strange impenetrability of people like Mr. Dobbs. In traditional terms Dobbs might be called an anti-American, anti-Capitalist Marxist. In modern terms he might be called a Democrat. Yes it's true Democrats are anti-American. A recent Rasmussen poll showed that 77% of Republicans think America is a noble country while only 44% of Democrats do. Perhaps Democrats believe we should have supported Hitler and Saddam rather than killing them? In any case, in Dobbs Democratic dreamland, America is evil, corporations are evil, capitalism itself is evil, and all are opposed to the interests of the middle class which, he generously says, makes up 93% of America.
Dobbs, for starters, is against big CEO paychecks but fails to point out that even if you confiscated those paychecks no significant revenue would be collected and doing so might destroy American business and the entire middle class which he purports to so enthusiastically champion. When Henry Clay Ford recently hired the guy from Boeing to save Ford Motor Co. and its 500,000 middle class jobs he said there were only 2-3 guys in America who might qualify for the job and want it. Would Dobbs really steal some or all of this guy's salary and risk 500,000 jobs and one of America's biggest businesses? Would he belittle people like Bill Gates as undeserving so they then might be inclined to raise their children to become gov't workers rather than ultra capitalist CEOs who earn huge salaries and invent new products that improve the entire world's standard of living? Dobbs is a socialist, collectivist, Marxist - a Democrat, although perhaps he doesn't know it, who is against the very things that make the American economy work so miraculously well. If salaries really are too high wouldn't that make a firm's products too expensive relative to the competition? Should Castro and Dobbs make wild guesses about where to set salary and price levels, or should the individual choices of free consumers in a free market set those levels at a place consistent with improving their standard of living?
Then, he opposes free trade because it forces American workers to compete world wide with workers who often earn far lower wages. He fails to mention that with unemployment at 4.4% Americans are mysteriously competing very very well indeed, that free trade results in enriching Walmart prices for everyone, that the middle class can now afford 70 million Ipods, 100 million cell phones, 10 million plasma TVs, more cars than registered drivers, and 3000 square foot homes, all of which they couldn't buy before free trade or globalization really kicked into gear 10 years ago.
Moreover, he utterly fails to point out how nearly impossible it is for Chinese workers to compete against American workers who are highly educated, highly competitive, highly productive, and have a highly supportive infrastructure and gov't behind them. On balance, American workers do about 20 times better in terms of real wage results. But somehow it is Americans who can't compete against them? Who would want to be a worker in China competing against Americans?
If we listened to Dobbs and the Democrats we would restrict international trade and eventually even interstate trade. Our products then would not have to be world class, they would then not sell as much, and our standard of living would decline relative to those who did compete to the higher world class standard. We'd all get poorer and poorer instead of richer and richer. In the end, our standard of living can rise only because of better quality, lower priced goods and services. There is no other way! Those who contribute most directly to this process should receive the highest rewards; those who contribute the least detract from our standard of living and should receive the lowest rewards. Indeed, our cultural and economic journey from the stone age to the 21st Century was held back by about 21 Centuries only by Democratic gov't schemes that superimposed their megalomania on natural, voluntary, capitalistic transactions between free people in a free world market, but still the Democrats are scheming?
At the height of his craziness Dobbs says that there is no countervailing power in America to oppose corporate power? That would certainly be news to GM and Ford (two of our biggest corporations), among many others, who are about to be regulated out of business by countervailing consumers who judge their products to be of lower quality. To a Marxist Democrat, freedom loving consumers regulating businesses into bankruptcy with their purchasing choices don't matter, only gov't power can "correctly" regulate corporations. This is something about which only Dobbs, Castro and the Democrats are still certain. One can imagine that ever alert Democrats will be forcing corporate average fuel efficiency standards(CAFE) on American auto makers long after consumers have already regulated them out of business. On one hand Dobbs claims foreign companies are too powerful and so American companies should not be forced to compete with them, and on the other he complains that American companies are also too powerful despite losing out to the more powerful; foreign companies?
In the end there is not one argument in the book that a first year Econ. 101 student could not destroy. But sadly, Dobbs and his book are doing well because Democrats have not taken Econ.101, and seemingly have no intention of ever doing so. Even sadder is that Dobbs would exploit this ignorance and deepen it to sell a book which he must know is a total lie. From
TheDumbDemocrat
Ted Baiamonte446
bje1000@aol.com
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