Ha Ha Ha Ha ………….Ha

http://forkinaround.blogspot.com/2008/11/on-statesmanship.html

The funny thing is that “capitalism” — the honorable pursuit of profit by economic as opposed to political means — is effectively a biological reality. It is rooted in individual experience that we cannot deny: that our labor has merit, and that merit is determined by the demand of those who voluntarily pay for it. It is decidedly NOT a “system” that we can control, as if the economy were some sort of hydraulic mechanism. As Hayek taught, it is an Order.

Those of us who remember the heady days around 1989 when the Berlin Wall fell saw this biological-economic reality smash through a tyrannical political reality, and put an end to 200 years of self-imposed misery.

Much as politicians and bureaucrats might imagine that they can “manage” this law of nature, they have about as much a chance at success as repealing the Law of Gravity. I believe it is a tragedy that NEITHER party seems to grasp this Law of Nature anymore, both being seduced by the fairy dust of imperial Washington.

I suspect that despite his best intentions, the next President will effectively demolish more wealth than he will ever be able to “spread around.”

There should be less controversy surrounding this than the responses to your blog seem to imply. Barak Obama ascended to the presidency because of cultural resonance with the American populace, but that alone doesn’t mean he understands commerce. The issue here seems to be outside of regulation and into the deeper issue of our future president’s understanding of the process of innovation. Whether he sets economic boundaries or regulations that restrict and control certain behaviors in a manner typical of conservatives or liberals is irrelevant as long as he understands the way markets negotiate within those contexts to find the most structurally viable solutions.

In law and social work you actively solve problems. You work to get out the vote or create and defend legal structures because you are in the role of the innovator. When managing the economy you have to step back, create regulations (or eliminate them) and allow others to become the innovators.

It may seem counter to his experience, but with individuals such as Buffet, Volkner, and Goolsbee advising him and with his penchant for the integration of ideas rather than dictation, I think we’re in very good hands.

I suggest you google this article (since your blog doesn’t allow HTML links):

NYT Magazine: Barack Obama, A Free-Market-Loving, Big-Spending, Fiscally Conservative Wealth Redistributionist (Aug 20th, 2008)

That article is a good read and sheds some light on how Obama understands the values markets.

In the last month, for example, the market for inter-bank lending in the western world ground to a halt because the recent spate of bank failures meant that no major bank had sufficient trust in any other major bank to lend it money. Barclays did not trust, for example, Bank of America to survive, and so would not lend money to it. This very unexpected and potentially-catastrophic failure of a market has only been rectified by (a) Western Governments promising consumers that their bank deposits will be safe (so that consumer trust in banks did not decline), and (b) Western Governments taking shares in the major banks in order to provide the banks with sufficient trust in one another to start lending again. In such a situation, commission – indeed PDQ commission – is essential. I have a great deal more confidence in an Obama administration recognizing a market failure and acting quickly to rectify it than either the Bush administration (which had to be prodded by the Europeans and the banks to act appropriately in this case) or a McCain administration.

It is possible to have too much experience, since it can leave behind a legacy mindset, and I think McCain suffers from that.

McCain is an easy target because he is a throwback, as you point out. He is a maverick, an old-style American individualist quoting Teddy Roosevelt, the original, self-styled Rough Rider.

Obama does NOT come out of this American history-myth, though he must make an appeal to it and even pay homage to it. Obama is something new.

Exactly what is unclear, as you say.

But there are clues you are leaving unexamined.

Don’t you think Obama will move the US out of the trap of its old history-myth (INDIVIDUALISM) and into the modern reality of COLLECTIVISM?

One thing you are right about, Grant, this is a dangerous intersection and jay walking will almost certainly be fatal.

So I think you need to get much much more diligent here.

Obama is a change maker and as a politician he will change the political rhetoric of America by revising its myth making. How will the markets respond? We’ll see.