Is Obama anti-business? Last week
Obama defended himself against these claims. Now
Austan Goolsbee explains that Obama isn't anti-business because (video available at link):
“There have been people criticizing the president, saying he’s a socialist, he doesn’t believe in the private market — that’s totally bogus." . . . “From the beginning and continuing up to the present, the president has always said that the private sector is going to be the only sustainable source of job creation and growth in this country, and that’s what we need to have.” . . . .
Ugh? What does the fact that the president says that most jobs will have to be working for private firms have to do with proving that he isn't anti-business. He wants to use government grants to business to determine what businesses will grow. That is pro-market?
Goolsbee blames the angry sentiments on: “When the unemployment rate is 9.6 percent, and when you’re coming out of the deepest hole in anybody’s lifetime, you knew that there were going to be a lot of people generally upset and not feeling good about where they are. ..." Obama is surely anti-free market. He dislikes businesses, though he is happy to give wealth transfers to some of them.
Goolsbee also did an interview that just came out
with the WSJ. He claims that Obama isn't anti-business because he "pushed through 16 tax cuts to assist small businesses and proposed additional incentives." The problem is that Obama doesn't trust businesses
to make decisions. See
also here.
Obama and Goolsbee keep claiming that this is the worst recession since the Great Depression, though Goolsbee claims that this is "the deepest recession since 1929."
Obama's anti-business attitudes don't just stem from his support for various price controls on everything from credit markets to health insurance. It isn't just that he is constantly attacking corporate officers for their excessive pay. He attacks insurance companies for being excessively concentrated and
he lies about how concentrated they are.
Strong arming bondholders to get them to agree to forfeit their investments. Obama denounced
Chrysler creditors as "speculators" who refuse to sacrifice as they should. Forcing the removal of auto dealerships that the companies didn't want removed and remove dealerships based on the gender and race of the dealers. After bailing out banks, Obama sought authority to seize any financial institution whose collapse might be "a systemic risk" to the economy. Attacking the profits of insurance companies and blaming those profits for the high cost of their insurance. He attacked doctors who give patients unnecessary tests or medicine as:
"And it's driven from a business mentality instead of a mentality of, how do we make patients better?" What about calling Wall Street
"fat cats." His discussions with CEOs involve
lecturing them: "He has held a number of meetings with CEOs, formally and off the record, but attendees I’ve talked to feel that although he listens intently, he rarely changes course."
Possibly Obama may go as far as claiming that the health care bill was done for businesses because he wanted to lower their costs.
Dinesh D'Souza is wrong when he says that Obama "
isn't exactly a socialist." If he isn't socialist, he is fascist. Where private ownership is allowed, there is complete government control.
Labels: anticapitalist, AustinGoolsbee, ObamaAdministration, socialism