Thursday, January 03, 2008
Beware of government "deals"
This writer thinks FDR's "New Deal" wasn't such a great one.
I think we might learn something from her review of it's history.
It seems to highlight that government's are extremely inefficient in the realm of management...
I think we might learn something from her review of it's history.
It seems to highlight that government's are extremely inefficient in the realm of management...
Amity Shlaes writes in the Wall Street Opinion Journal:
"Is a public-sector job really as good as a job created in the private sector? I've been wondering about this a lot lately, in part because I just finished a book about the period of the first great American experiment in public job creation, the New Deal. Critics have written that I failed to appreciate the value of New Deal emergency jobs. But the quality of government-paid jobs is also relevant because of the Democratic presidential candidates' interest in that 1930s experiment.
To hear the candidates talk, a repeat of 1930s-scale government job creation is dangerously overdue. John Edwards has proposed that government take the lead in creating types of jobs--'green collar' and 'stepping stone'--to serve the two goals of protecting the environment and giving lower earners new skills. Dennis Kucinich is calling for a new green version of FDR's Works Progress Administration."
