President-elect Obama’s recent train trip to Washington, D.C., has been widely publicized. He supposedly made this trip to emulate the one made by president-elect Abraham Lincoln just before his inauguration. Obama milked this train trip for as much publicity as he could get, with stops in several cities and towns where large crowds had gathered to see him and to hear him speak. And oh can he speak, being one of the greatest orators in the last century of United States history. The adulation that he is getting is almost frightening to me, as though many if not most Americans believe that Obama can truly “change” things, and for the better. And yes, after his inauguration things will change, with the federal government getting even more involved in our economy. The government will spend money right and left, (often for congressmen’s pet projects), and more laws and regulations will be imposed on economic activity. Frankly I believe that most of these will be of little or no help, and in fact some of them will be damaging. This previous web post of mine gives more thoughts of mine about this, although this person’s article does a better job in explaining what are basically also my thoughts.
This all reminds me somewhat of what happened in France in 1981 when for the first time since the second world war the French elected a Socialist as President – Francois Mitterand. Huge crowds gathered throughout France celebrating his victory, especially in Paris, celebrations not seen since Paris was liberated during the Second World War. Millions of French people truly believed that things would get even better since a Socialist had finally been elected to the highest political position in the land. But not long after he assumed head of the French government, their economy started to decline, mostly because of the socialistic and tax policies of Mitterand’s regime. If anyone had any doubts that “Les Trente Glorieuses” were over, they certainly knew it was over shortly after Mitterand took power. (The phrase “Les Trente Glorieuses” refers to a roughly 30-year period after the Second World War when the economy in France grew and grew, so much so that the standard of living in France doubled and tripled over those years.) But using France as an example, starting with the highly-celebrated election of Mitterand, things frequently went downhill from there. Even Western Europe itself did not do much better, and the European Union does not help. I fear that Obama’s assumption of power, with the Democrats in power in both Houses of Congress, will somewhat mirror what happened in France, in which case god help us.
Considering France and the European Union, the latter is a bureaucratic nightmare, roughly similar to the United Nations. The European Union is little but a jobs-program for some politicians and many civil servants, as is the United Nations. It hampers businesses and free-markets more than it helps. As an example, this recent article bears the title “European Regulators Just Can’t Leave Microsoft Alone”. It was only a year ago that Microsoft was fined over one billion dollars by the European Union for so-called antitrust infractions due to its supposed monopoly with the Windows operating system. But now the European Union has again charged Microsoft with another “antitrust” infraction, this one being the automatic inclusion of the Internet Explorer browser in the Windows operating system. (The US Government had charged Microsoft with the same “infraction” some years ago.) In case you are not aware of this simple fact, Microsoft and its software has been responsible for an increase in our standard of living, providing us with very useful software for “home” computers at historically low prices. But no say those on the left – Microsoft is a monopoly which takes advantage of its money and position to hurt consumers. What bullcrap.