Posted by
Always To The Right on Saturday, November 01, 2008 1:03:18 PM
Just in case voters didn’t figure out Barack Obama’s economic instincts
towards statism, this interview from 2007 on energy policy should open
a few eyes. During the Democratic primaries, Obama had a lot more
openness about his desire for top-down control of the economy,
especially when it came to energy. In order to change the behavior of
consumers, Obama argued, the government had to send “price signals” to
deter bad decisionmaking . . .
Is that the function of government — to fix prices as a punitive
measure to change consumer behavior? It will be in an Obama
administration. He and a few elites will decide which consumer
behaviors are bad, and penalize it with price signals.
That usually means taxes or tariffs that drive the cost upwards. I’d
guess that Obama isn’t celebrating the fact that a gallon of gasoline
will likely fall below $2 per gallon sometime this week.
When have we seen government send “price signals to change behavior” before? Oh, yes — in the lending markets.
When government wanted more loans given to risky borrowers for
political purposes, they sent “price signals” to lenders by having
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac buy up tons of subprime paper, and then
mandated their conversion to securities to send “price signals” to
investors. How did those “price signals” work out for taxpayers,
consumers, and investors?