Obama's jobs speech

Obama does not understand that government is not the source of prosperity. Obama does not understand that prosperity does not result from short term stimulus. Obama does not understand that government is never the proximate cause of prosperity; that, instead, government should operate in the background, creating a stable, long-term environment that serves as a matrix within which the private economy, the true engine of prosperity, can flourish.

No, it is not government, but rather the vast American people and myriad American businesses that, when allowed to operate in a stable, open, and undistorted environment, have always been and always will be the wellspring of prosperity. This is the story of Amrican exceptionalism. If Obama would only unleash the creativity and energy of the American people, the American economy would flourish.

Obama is caught in the various fallacies of central planning. He does not understand that central planners cannot possibly have more aggregate intelligence about economic decisions than the great mass of the American people. This would be true even if the central planners were the most intelligent individuals in our society (and Obama certainly does not fit that description; it is laughable now to think how much was expected and "hoped for" from this man whose chief experience in life was as a community organizer). Neither can central planners have enough information nor can they react quickly enough to be able to manage the enormous American economy effectively. These things were demonstrated by Hayek.

The vanity of Obama is simply astounding. He really thinks it all starts and stops with him and the rest of his Beltway compatriots. He has no comprehension of the vast worlds and energies that exist outside the Beltway. Although he travels to the West Coast frequently and hobnobs with the high-tech glitterati, he really has no clue how Silicon Valley works. Our heroes are Steve Jobs, John Chambers, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Jeff Bezos, Meg Whitman, Sergei Brin, and many, many more, people who have actually done something in this world besides spending money expropriated from the taxpayers. They have taken risks. They have created companies from scratch. These companies employ hundreds of thousands of workers and indirectly benefit millions more. These companies were not built by handing over $1T in stimulus money to Maxine Waters and Robert Reich, but through creative genius melded with persistence and ultra-hard work.

Obama does not understand any of this. But, in fact, to say that Obama does not understand this is to go too easy on him. The cold reality is that much of this new stimulus money will go to paying off favored political constituencies. So, at best Obama is inexperienced and inept, and at worst thoroughly corrupt.