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President Bush,
Senators Miller & Cleland,
Congressman Linder,
Georgia Congressional Delegation,
The excerpts below are from a Walter Williams article dated June 19, 2002. In seven short paragraphs, Mr. Williams clearly demonstrates how free market principles
improve human prosperity and peacefulness.
Your responsibility should focus on eliminating government interference in free markets. Creating a bigger more powerful socialist federal government works contrary to the peaceful behavior and prosperity of free markets. If you really want to help our economy:
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Shut down non-essential government agencies like the Departments of Education, Commerce, Interior, and Energy.
Stop funding corporate welfare programs like the Export-Import Bank, Market Access Program, Overseas Private Investment Corporation, Advanced Technology Program, International Trade Administration, etc. This will save over $75 billion annually.
Sell off government owned assets to reduce government debt. Examples are TVA, western national forests, and the U.S. Postal Service.
Implement a flat tax.
Abolish capital gains and estate tax.
End tax withholding.
Stop playing favorites. Get out of the way and let the markets decide.
Read Gene Callahan's book "Economics For Real People."
If you want to assist the destruction of Western civilization, just keep doing what you're doing.
Wes Alexander
Does it count? by Walter Williams June 19, 2002 in World Net Daily.
In 1846, there were 735 U.S. whaling ships, 80 percent of the world's whaling fleet. American whalers killed an average of 15,000 whales per year, mostly to produce oil for lamps. By the time whaling dropped off, toward the end of the century, there were only 50,000 whales alive. Had whaling continued, there would be no whales today.
So, who was responsible for saving the whale from extinction? Was it Greenpeace? No, it was multimillionaire John D. Rockefeller, who successfully marketed kerosene, which took over the illumination market. Later, Thomas Edison's incandescent light bulb ran both whale oil and kerosene out of the illumination market. Some might say that Rockefeller's and Edison's saving the whale doesn't count because they didn't intend to do it. They were just greedy capitalists who cared more about profits than saving whales. I say three cheers for Rockefeller and Edison.
There's another wonderful thing that we never think about, and that's our supermarkets. The average well-stocked supermarket carries over 50,000 different items. For visitors from other countries, a trip to one of our supermarkets must be like a trip to Disneyland. But what's the driving force behind this miracle? There's a bunch of people, literally millions, who don't give a hoot about you and me personally, but they serve us well. But as far as motivation, they're in it for themselves – they want more profits, wages, interest and rent.
The list of wonderful things that people do for us is unending. But the most wonderful thing about it is they do it without loving us – they might even hate us. They do it voluntarily; and while we sleep, they're awake trying to discover other ways to please. That has got to be close to Paradise here on Earth.
I'm not the first to think about this. In 1776, Adam Smith – the acknowledged father of economics – published "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations." In it, he eloquently captures the essence of this wonderfulness, saying: "He [the businessman] generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. He intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain."
Smith continues: "He is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. ... By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good. ... It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest."
Self-interest is the human motivation that is most trustworthy and predictable, and gets the most wonderful things done.
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