Nov 4, 2007

Kevin Duffy on central planners running for president

[Senator John] Kerry has a plan for everything. He talks about how ineffective government has been under [George w.] Bush the past 4 years (the only truth he told), then promises to run things better. He doesn’t say going into Iraq was a mistake (it was), just that he would have run the war better, gotten more international forces to participate, etc., etc. etc.

This entire election is a joke. We should be faced with two real choices: 1) government is the solution to nearly everything; we just need enough resources and the right people, and 2) government is the problem; we need less of it and more voluntary/private solutions. Kerry has a political solution for everything – his “plans”. He is a classic central planner. Does Bush come back and say this is absurd and that central planning is a massive failure from the Soviet economy to Canadian socialized medicine to American socialized education? No! He has the arrogance to say he can pull it off! He’s a tough Texan and surely up for the challenge. He can get the two parties to work together. He’ll make the touch choices. Yada, yada, yada.

Does either candidate reject the central planning going on with our central bank, the Federal Reserve? No! Kerry said Greenspan is doing a terrific job. Clinton kept re-appointing him and encouraging him. Reagan originally appointed him. And Bush fired his economic lieutenant, Larry Lindsey, who complained about the bubble blown on Clinton’s watch. Then he turns around and embraces Greenspan… because he’s “stimulating” the economy. It’s all economic nonsense, yet few seem to notice… or care.

Greenspan and Bush… incredibly powerful men who have let that power go to their heads. Hubris. Shame on us for handing over so much power to two men. Pride goeth before a fall, but when Humpty and Dumpty fall, will Americans learn the right lesson?

~ Kevin Duffy, Bearing Asset Management, October 14, 2004

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