Gulf oil rigs - Government regulatory incompetence

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37841204/ns/disaster_in_the_gulf/

Each passing day shows the incompetence of government management when it comes to industry regulation such as regulation of the oil industry. To be clear, I'm against government regulation. Not that I want companies like BP to destroy the environment without oversight, but because I don't want companies like BP to destroy the environment.

This is the problem with debates regarding regulation. There's the mistaken idea that without government regulation there would be nothing -- no law, no means of oversight, no punishment for fraud and neglect, just free reign for companies to do anything they want to do. This is absurd.

Private oversight arrangements would develope and the law would not disappear. What's happened is regulatory capture where large, politically savvy companies have colluded with regulators to minimize the companies' reponsibilities. Government managers have proven to be poor managers, and I don't know if it's the government culture or the political hiring process, but it's subpar.

Management is an art that has been honed in the private sector based on performance and knowledge of requisite skills. Poor management in the private sector results in competitors gaining the upper hand. Government employees have to committ serious crimes before they're even slapped on the hand in many incidences. 

Plus, as a result of government's ability to pass out favors to companies, the competition among companies now is based on political skills rather than business management skills, so regulation has even dulled the management skills in the private sector -- when a compnay is protected by government from competition, it becomes lazy and less cocerned with excellent performance. The government/corpration relationship has created dishonesty and incompetence.

Yes, I want companies to be held responsible when they committ crimes and violate the rights of the public, but as we're seeing, regulation is not doing a good job of prevention -- we don't want to get to the point where a company is violating the public's rights before there is action. We need a free market where excellence in performance matters and is rewarded and where incompetence and dishonesty is punished in real time. Government involvement has gotten this exactly backwards -- until there's a crisis where political pressure demands action does the government rise up like a savior. It's the lack of oversight before the crisis that needs focus.

Sarah Palin -- a classical liberal

More and more Sarah Palin is revealing herself to be a classical liberal. With her recent call for relaxing marijuana laws, coupled with her consistent pro-freemarket, limited government positions, she's evolving from a conservative into a classical liberal. Palin isn't pushing for government intervention on social issues -- she's saying what she thinks is moral but not calling for laws and regulations to implement her morals. Palin is satisfied with the art of persuasion, free choice, debate in the market place of ideas.

I admire Palin -- she's a strong person who defends liberty. Some would take that statement and guffaw, followed by a clever smear, but they would be small. Palin is definitely not small. Opinionated? Yes. Strong willed? Yes. Critical of progressivism? Yes. But, that's what makes good leaders, people who are unafraid to make their case or stand by their beliefs. The private sector needs more leaders like Palin. I've watched Palin grow and change -- it's for the good. She's made mistakes and learned from them. I hope she sees the virtue in non-intervention in foreign affairs and the folly of the Afghanistan war. 

Like I've said before, I hope she doesn't run for office -- she's needed more in the private sector than in government where the party will claim her soul -- some people are too special for government. I understand why the left is afraid of her -- they can't destroy her if she's not in their arena.

Kudos to David Sanger at NYT

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/18/us/18assess.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

I was pleasantly surprised and pleased to see David Sanger's mild rebuke in the NYT of Obama's anti-capitalist, anti-free market, anti-business mindset. At least it's an acknowledgement that Obama is over-stepping his Constitutional limitations and revealing a bias against the private enterprise realm.

Sanger is right to worry about foreign investors being leery of investing in America in this anti-free market environment, especially in this global economy -- rather than scare off investors, America has the opportunity to become the only free market haven in the world. If we open our arms to investors, the economy will recover and we can put people back to work.

Obama's actions are revealing a progressive ideology which is counter to economic growth. Republicans are once again showing their lack of courage by going along with what they see as a populist anger against business. There's evidence that the public is angry at some big corporations, but hopefully it's an anger which takes into account the unholy alliace of big corporations and government, and that we need to end corporate favoritism and establish a free market -- hopefully. Republicans need to stand up rather than lie down.

Thank you, Mr. Sanger. Maybe there's hope for journalists after all.

Obama's speech from the White House

Two aspects of Obama's speech bothered me -- one was the military language he used and the second was his inspirational message of getting things accomplished.

The way he set the government against BP in military language suggests an underlying anti-capitalist sentiment he's projected from the start of his campaign. Our government shouldn't be at war with free enterprise, but time and time again Obama has framed business people as villians -- the enemy -- white executives who don't want to pay taxes to send inner-city kids to school, doctors doing unecessary operations, exectutives who lie and manipulate -- on and on he goes with anti-capitalist rhetoric. At times he's said he's for American enterprise, but then contradicts himself over and over with heated rhetoric against the private sector. On the whole, with all his words taken together, it's obvious his statist mentality sees no virtue in a free market -- only a market carefully controlled by government.

His inspirational message about Americans being able to accomplish grand goals obviously means that only through government can we accomplish grand goals. This makes me wonder why that's so. I get into debates all the time about a free market vs statism, and at the end of the debate when the statist has no more ammunition, they resort to claiming a free market, although it sounds good, just can't work -- society just can't make it happen. Yet, these statists probably agree with Obama that we are a nation of people who've accomplished some amazing feats during our existence. Are we to believe that it's only through govenment that we can accomplish our goals? Surely, given government's track record as a whole, this narrative can't last much longer.

Obama is using the gulf oil rig accident as a political weapon to wage further war against the private sector -- this is wrong, and we should all defend free enterprise before government wins the war and we're taken as prisoners. If BP is at fault, this could be determined in a court of law and they can be ordered to pay damages -- but making this political to advance a progressive agenda is not the way to justice.

Obama wants another 50 billion

This is beyond absurd. Obama will not admit his economic policies are crippling the economy, so, rather than change course he's asking for $50 billion to throw down a hole. How long is he going to support the unions with our money before congress stops him?

Unless Obama is intenetionally overloading the system to create financial collapse, he's totally ignorant of economics. The private sector he loves to bash is our only hope, yet he's continuing to direct money away from the private sector into unions.

There must be a few adults left in government who can stop this madness and release America to a path of economic growth. I can't see Obama coming to the awakening of free market principles, so our representatives will have to force the issue. If no one has the courage to do the right thing, then we're doomed for a long, long time. The amazing thing about this is that Obama still has supporters and apologists who blame Bush. We're past Bush -- this is all on the current administration. Obama and the Democrat congress have taken a bad situation and created a catastrophe. Blaming Bush will no longer work.