GE CEO Jeff Immelt on President Obama: “Business did not like the U.S. president, and the president did not like business.”
Harvard economic professor Jeffrey Miron on the policies of the Obama Administration: “I don’t think [President Obama] has indicated by his actions in office — separate from his rhetoric before holding office — that he’s pro-business. He says sort of condescending things about business, characterizing business as somehow evil for wanting to make profits. But from an economist’s point-of-view, that’s what business is supposed to be doing, making profits.”
Investor’s Business Daily editorial on the failure of Obama’s economic policies: “The fact is, $700 billion in TARP bailouts, $862 billion in economic ‘stimulus,’ $70 billion in auto industry aid, $1.2 trillion in Fed money-printing and $146 billion spent on bailing out insolvent government mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have done nothing to restore our economy’s vigor.”
Columnist Mike Cosgrove on the decline of the American private sector: “Every single policy prescription that the president has signed or is promoting works to make the U.S., at the margin, a less-competitive climate for business formation and business expansion. This means slow private-sector job creation.”
Columnist J.T. Young on why government regulation (of the oil industry, or anything else) always must fail: “Regulators start behind the regulated. Whatever the activity, the private sector must first create it. The government cannot regulate what does not exist — nor can it create from scratch. Experience and expertise therefore accrue first to the private sector … Yet, more regulation doesn’t change the dependency dynamic because it doesn’t alter the regulated’s dominance in expertise, innovation and sheer numbers. The dependency dynamic means regulators will never keep pace. When they fail, as they ultimately will, regulators will have no recourse but to seek the expertise of the regulated.”