STOP REGULATING THE FREE MARKET YOU MORONS

 

I get just furious every time I hear another fact free liberal say that they support the free market as long as it is well regulated. Free markets by definition exist only where prices for goods sold depend solely on the dynamic of supply and demand. Thomas Sowell in his series of articles, grouped under the heading of “Fact-free Liberals”, makes the case that once liberals adopt a narrative, mere facts alone cannot persuade them of a truth that runs counter to their beliefs.

We are in the process right now of trying to expand our manufacturing business to supply a market demand that we created by designing a new product that our market wants. While we were in the process of applying for permits to add to our existing manufacturing plant, several states other than where we are located started courting, trying to persuade us to relocate. The inducements ranged from years of tax exemption and training cost grants to offering land and facilities. I decided to ask our home state economic development department if there were any pro-growth incentives available. I should have known better. We operate in a blue state and every incentive offered was encumbered by liberal B.S. Two years of property taxes could be deferred if every job created was maintained at 150% of the prevailing wage for like jobs in the area. Mind you the taxes were not forgiven just delayed for two years. The state also required for the tax deferral or a loan guarantee that our small business provide full medical benefits compliant with the ACA. Being a small business of less than 50 employees we are exempt from the coverage provisions of Obamacare. The fact free liberals who came up with these added expenses have no concept of what it is to compete in the free market. My competitors from overseas operate without corporate taxes, minimum wage requirements, or EPA/DEQ regulations. If we were to accept the cost loading in exchange for what the state is offering, the jobs we create would disappear along with my company when we failed to be cost competitive in the market. Corporations have not taken jobs overseas by choice, the regulation and tax burden has left them no alternative except extinction. I have stated in these pages before that over regulation (80,000 pages of brand new ones last year) is the plague of our time. President Obama knows the power that regulations have over the very existence of any industry. He stated that he would not block anyone from building a new coal fired power plant but he’d make sure with regulations that they couldn’t afford to operate it. This was said out loud during an election campaign speech in a capitalist county with a free market economy and the fact free liberal audience cheered. Instead of realizing 42% of our electricity comes from coal and any factual analysis of greenhouse gas effect shows clearly that man generated CO2 is insignificant, they cheered. The narrative has been put out there that burning fossil fuel is killing the planet and facts have no impact on the liberal mind.

Liberals regulate automakers requiring average fuel mileage of 54.5 MPG. Then step up to the first mike and claim to have reduced our dependence on foreign oil. The fuel economy standards have had no measurable effect on our oil imports because the free market converted the savings not into less fuel consumed but more miles driven. The state of Washington is now using the phantom reductions in fuel consumption to justify regulations for a mileage tax to offset the non-existent losses on fuel tax due to the reduced consumption. Facts just don’t matter. There are some real market dynamics in play as people budget their fuel consumption because of the poor economy. These same fact free folks convince themselves that putting ethanol in gas is good for the environment and pass regulations requiring its inclusion. The EPA now shows in their own reporting that the ethanol costs more in fossil fuel to make it than it offsets and does not lower emissions. In the face of their own measurements the government is proposing to raise the level of ethanol included in gasoline.

When our government imposes restrictions on the free market the results are always bad for American workers. Jobs are lost and prices are raised. The new healthcare law is just the next in an avalanche of business killing policies pushed onto the country by elected officials disconnected from the realities of free market dynamics.