Thursday, February 25, 2010

The President & Prosperity

Yesterday PRESIDENT OBAMA SPOKE before the Business Roundtable and said this:
Whatever differences we have in this country, all of us have a stake in meeting the same goal, which is an America in which a growing prosperity is shared widely by its people.
Of course, the President goes on to talk about how this growing shared prosperity can be achieved through his favorite government policies. I agree with the goal of a growing shared prosperity. I wonder how this goal should be pursued?

I think we can discover the answer to this question by reading LUDWIG VON MISES:
“. . .there is only one way a nation can achieve prosperity: if you increase capital, you increase the marginal productivity of labor, and the effect will be that real wages will rise. (p. 88)”
If you read all of the President's speech, and/or if you follow the President's policy proposals, I think you will be forced to the conclusion that the President seems to know very little about how the country's prosperity was achieved, and very little about how the country's prosperity can be sustained.

Oh, and if you have some time, you will learn many more valuable lessons by reading the entire set of lecture by Mises, than you will from following all the speeches and policies of the President. I would go so far as to suggest that if you study these seven lecture by Mises the result will be that you will be one of the most economically literate voters in the country.

1 comment:

Tim Canon said...

Those lectures still remain some of the best readings I ever was forced to read. Great stuff.