New President, Same Old Snake-Oil Economics

by Gerald Warner - January 18th, 2009 - Scotland on Sunday

... Obama promises more than three million new jobs. Unfortunately, some clever clogs in Congress with a ball-point and the back of an envelope spotted that meant a cost of $275,000 per job. Governments cannot create jobs. All they can do is invent camouflaged welfare programmes. Only the market can create jobs; and massive "job" creation in the public sector destroys real employment.

To implement a programme so alien to the instincts of Americans, Obama needs a supportive mythology. He has found it in the myth of Franklin D Roosevelt's New Deal. That massive interventionist programme actually delayed recovery from the 1930s depression. During 1930-40, the US economy would have been expected to grow 30%-40%. Instead, it languished: net private investment totalled [minus] $3.1 [billion].

Not only was FDRs program called fascist at the time by those who were experts in fascism, the new deal destroyed our nation for a decade. It would have destroyed our nation for generations had World War II not given our nation the chance to unleash our economic powers building the machinery to defeat the Axis. How can anyone who has followed history not accept that such an abysmal record for the "New Deal" cannot continue to be blithely accepted as having been successful. The first New Deal was a disaster for our nation. Obama's New New Deal will be even worse.