Friday, October 31, 2008

Franklin and Barack

There are a few accurate historians who noticed that Franklin D. Roosevelt brought with him the seeds of the Nation’s economic destruction in 1932. That is, businessmen and investors distrusted him, and rightly so. He had decidedly socialist leanings in a time of world socialism. Thus, his policies continued the breadth and depth of the Great Depression. This is because capital investment is a huge factor in an economy. Since people who could be investors, weren’t investing. The economy suffered.

The Englishman Lord Keynes, on whom FDR depended for economics advice, recognized the need for investment and told FDR that since the private sector would not invest, the Federal Government should do the investing. It was an admission that people with capital did not trust the new president.

Once again we are faced with electing a man with decidedly socialistic tendencies—Barack Obama. He is a lawyer and seems not overly astute at economic matters. He is probably not a historian, so we may well be doomed to repeat the mistakes of the 1930’s. That is, people with capital will not invest and the Federal Government will invest in their places. A bloated, unmanageable Government will become even more so.

Am I wrong about this? Perhaps. But I noticed that recently, when the polls showed a decreasing gap between the popularity of the two presidential candidates, the stock market rose almost 900 points.

Probably, private investors are a little better at history and at economics than Mr. Obama.