Business, Economics, Political Commentary

I Don’t Want A Government That Is “Pro Business”

8 Comments

I want one that is for the free market.

Yes, I know that I’ve been complaining that the administration has been anti-business, and it has been, particularly with all of the uncertainty that it’s engendered, with businesspeople not knowing what new atrocity and attack on profits it’s going to commit. But that doesn’t mean that I want it to be subsidizing politically favored business (including energy businesses, of all flavors) either.

8 thoughts on “I Don’t Want A Government That Is “Pro Business””

  1. There’s actually another way to be “Pro Business” and anti-consumer – and it crops in strawmen incessantly. The “Free Market” does not need or desire an environment where government apathy or dysfunction allows any of a multitude of distortions of the fair trade model. That is: one in which both sides feel they directly benefited from the trade. Examples would be out-and-out theft, intimidation, “company towns”, and false advertising.

  3. The core of free enterprise is competition and transparency. Company towns are often anti-competitive, but when benign can help develop an area by providing essential services to employees until the local economy grows enough.

    The evil that must always be fought is anti-competition. All government involvement by it’s nature is anti-competitive. Regulation gives competitive advantage to those already established for example.

    I don’t want government to be pro anything but liberty. Any attempt to say government would provide healthy competition is an absolute lie. HC being the latest example.

  4. Business Neutral, while participating as an arbitrator and regulator.
    I know some will be averse to those terms but in their strictest definition, without Bias, it is an essential govt. role.

    The key is over-site and transparency of those that oversee and arbitrate. Checks and balance, Trust but verify.

  5. What’s wrong with company towns?

    I don’t know. What’s wrong with the company you work for also being your landlord, and paying you with company scrip you can only spend at the company store?

  6. A company town is one in which the company has assumed the position of government. This is rarely a good thing. The term ‘company town’ is often used to describe a town with a single major employer, which isn’t anywhere near the level of the mining towns that defined the term. There, the one grocery store, the hardware store the brothel, all three pubs are all owned by the mine….

  7. Rand’s imagination:

    attack on profits

    Reality:

    Profits have surged 62 percent from the start of 2009 to mid-2010, according to the Commerce Department. That is faster than any other year and a half in the Fabulous ’50s, the Go-Go ’60s or the booms under Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton.

    Under another president, especially a Republican president, the data on corporate profits would be envied. George W. Bush, who dedicated a good deal of his presidency to tax cuts aimed at boosting business profits, probably would have loved such results. It took Bush nearly four years to post the gains that Obama has managed in less than half the time.

  8. Another example of Jim lying with statistics…

    smaller businesses are basically flat for the past 18 months

    Pick the right subset and I’m sure you can show 1000% profit. Yer slackin’ off there, guy!

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