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PAGE 4, NOVEMBER 24, 2008, THE ISLANDER
D
C rORJJIM
Letters to the Editor and Opinions
No, the Government can’t
By Sheldon Richman
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2008
Letter to
the Editor
Dear Editor:
I don't always agree with your
Back Talk columns, but your piece
on the $3,700,000 solid, concrete
median the DOT is about to place
in the middle of the Causeway was
right on target. What a joke. I feel
very sorry for the loved ones of those
who have been killed in Causeway
accidents. However, a small number
of deaths caused by driver error is
not sufficient justification for such
an unnecessary project. While there
was a rash of such accidents, when
was the last fatality which would
have been prevented by this medi
an?
I hope it is not too late for our
county commissioners, even those
who may have lost someone in these
accidents, to come to their senses,
and tell the DOT that the people of
Glynn County do not want this proj
ect. And further, that in these times
of fiscal deficits, such an expendi
ture is an inappropriate use of the
people's money. Please continue to
press for the cancellation of this
project, which even the DOT feels is
a bad idea.
Dick Wiederhorn
St. Simons Island, GA □
Common Sense
The Boomers’ Bust
By Paul Jacob
Remember when Bill Clinton
ascended to the presidency? There
were hurrahs. At last the Baby Boom
generation had its own president!
We’ve gone through another Baby
Boom president, and now we — and
I’m talkin’ ’bout my generation, here
— have our very own economic bust.
Call it the Boomers’ Bust.
John Kass, writing in the Chicago
Tribune, notes how different things
look for Boomers, now. “In the ’70s,”
Kass writes, “the slogan was ‘Do
your own thing.” But today’s slogan
might be ‘Washington, please save
us.’”
Kass attributes some of the differ
ence merely to age. When we were
young, we took risks. Now that we’re
older, we simply want to keep our
houses and our cars and our TV sets,
and our retirement plans.
The ominous marker in all this is
the transfer of power. In our desires,
demands, for security, we’ve given
up a lot. Kass says we are giving up
“liberty for all” and exchanging it
with “power in the hands of a few.”
We can see it is who gains most:
people and corporations on the inside
track. But, as Kass points out, look
who loses: “The casualty will be the
entrepreneurs, those on the outside.
. . . Such men and women will be on
the outside for decades now.”
Since it was entrepreneurs who
accomplished the most enduring
good during the last 40 years, this
will be tragic. □
Barack Obama will assume the
presidency on a wave of hope among
millions of Americans that he will
deliver on promises that countless
politicians have made before him.
Rising above partisanship and com
mitted to solving long-festering prob
lems, Obama will inspire and unify
the American people and, as a result,
move the crusty Washington politi
cal apparatus to at long last serve
the interests of all.
At least that’s the theory and the
widely held expectation. The truth
is that some political promises can
not be kept because they run up
against the wall of reality, namely,
the unmalleable laws of economics.
The sooner Obama learns this, the
easier it will be on everyone and
the more good he will be capable of.
Because of those laws, which are
every bit as real as the laws of phys
ics, government cannot directly do
the things Obama wants to do: raise
wages, create jobs, provide univer
sal medical care, improve education,
innovate on energy, and the rest. But
indirectly he can help bring those
things about. How? By freeing the
economic process of all impediments
and distortions, including taxes on
production, regulations, subsidies,
and guarantees to business. The free
market, which consists of free indi
viduals cooperating through consent
and the division of labor, can deliver
those things and more.
It may seem strange to hear that
economic laws limit our options.
Obama’s slogan was “Yes we can.”
In part he means there’s nothing
“we” can’t do if we put our minds to
it. And by “we” he means govern
ment. All that is holding us back, he
is saying, is the lack of will and com
mitment. We can have all the things
he promises if we want them enough
and are willing to work together.
But this is naive. If he said we
could repeal the laws of physics if we
worked hard enough, no one would
believe him. So why believe his sug
gestion that we can achieve things
in defiance of the laws of economics?
It takes a certain humility to
acknowledge our limitations. While
ambition and audacity are admira
ble, some things are beyond human
capabilities. For example, the laws
of economics — which are laws of
human action — dictate that all
choices have costs and tradeoffs. In
a world of scarcity, efforts to achieve
A mean abstaining from efforts to
achieve B. It’s in the nature of things,
and we have no choice about it.
Given this fact, it is good that people
confront the costs of their actions, for
those costs prevent us from achiev
ing the less valuable at the expense
of the more valuable.
Government cannot change this
law, but government can obscure
it by hiding or shifting the costs.
For example, subsidies and regula
tions can make medical care appear
cheaper than it really is. When gov
ernment does this, it upsets the
balance of supply and demand, rais
ing prices for the uninsured and
creating other hardships. At that
point, government will either have
to back off or expand its intervention
in an attempt to fix the problems it
caused. But new interventions will
beget new problems, and the cycle
begins again.
The upshot is that when govern
ment tries to ignore the laws of
economics, it throws things out of
whack, makes things worse, and pro
vides excuses for the exercise of more
power. The results are undesirable
from the point of view of most people:
fewer and less desirable goods and
services, and a shrinking of freedom
as government power grows.
It is important to realize that
intentions are irrelevant in this
regard. The logic of human action
operates with implacable regularity
whether intentions are good or bad.
That logic can no more be annulled
than can the laws of the natural sci
ences.
Barack Obama is no doubt a
remarkable political figure. But he’s
not that remarkable. If he wants a
successful presidency, he’ll have to
learn to live with the laws of eco
nomics — and liberate the American
people from government restrictions
on their peaceful activities.
Sheldon Richman is senior fellow
at The Future of Freedom Founda
tion (www.fff.org) and editor of The
Freeman magazine. □
A Safeguard Worth Noticing
In this country, politicians understand that the more you
know about government, the better off we all are. So, they
created public notices to be printed in the newspaper.
Georgias newspapers go one step further and also make
public notices, from all 159 counties in the state, available in a
free and searchable database online. It’s fast. It’s easy.
It Serves The Public’s Right To Know.
GeorgiaPublicNotice.com
Georgia Statewide Database of Public Notices