Rich Lowry writes The Jobs Rule in The National Review Online 10/7/11.

Excerpt:

Pres. Barack Obama loves his “Buffett Rule” for taxes. He’d be better served by adopting the “Jobs Rule”: Government’s role is to provide the structure of order and freedom for the churning creativity of the free market, and otherwise minimize its involvement in forces beyond its competence to understand or control.

In the form of the market, Jobs had a more exacting master than any government agency could ever devise. There was no guarantee that his genius would be rewarded. When he made missteps, he failed. The misbegotten Lisa desktop computer is a mere footnote in the obituaries. It didn’t live on in perpetuity, bailed out and propped up. When sales were disappointing in the 1980s, Jobs got ousted for a time from his own company.

The government can care for the needy; it can field a military and do much else besides. But it can’t dream. It can’t let its imagination run wild and pursue an individual vision with a ruthless determination. It can’t conjure new and profitable industries out of nothing. What we need to revive the economy over the long term is what the government can never create: Not just more jobs, but more people like Steve Jobs.

HKO Comment:

Well said.  Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Facebook never sought nor needed a government loan. The market was a harsh but rewarding mistress, yet provided all the capital and support they needed.  Taking government money is not only an admission of market failure but a denial of its purpose.  Governments support  Solyndras, markets support Apples.

print