Ronald Reagan, in describing the economic views dominant in the Democratic Party, once said:

If it moves tax it, if it keeps moving regulate it, if it stops moving subsidize it.

The Group of 20 convened earlier this week in London to much ruckus and fanfare. Making his presence known was the Celebrity-in-Chief, President Obama. While the possibility of disaster for the conference existed over an apparently hollow threat on the part of the French president, the final result of the conference of national leaders from across the globe was far from ideal; indeed, the agreement reached looks as if it were lifted from President Obama’s abysmal economic policy.

The question of where the current President of the United States stands in te free trade versus fair trade debate may now have an answer,  if the G20 deal is any indication. Just as President Obama in his budget proposal to Congress semmingly sought to substitute private charity with government largesse, the G20 plan seeks to replace private investment in little and developing countries with state-controlled and regulated investment. Economies which generate wealth purely or largely through private investment are now being punished for the competition they pose. Granted, the focus of the proposed sanctions is meant to be on tax havens, smaller countries generally could be hurt by the new rules. If the other G20 proposals are any indicator, the little countries hurt by the protection racket newly created are to become aid dependent, turning back the progress of the developing world by a generation or more.

As British PM Gordon Brown asserts, a “new world order” may now be in place, but it reeks of past failures. President Obama even noted in remarks after the London tragedy deal was negotiated that unemploment was on the rise in the United States. Unemplyment has neither been reduced consistently by the bailout and stimulus policy of this administration, nor that of its predecessor, yet onward the United States marches away from the entrepreneurial spirit which made the country so great. As the saying goes, insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting a different result. In the g20 “recovery” deal, the President of the United States has, in essence, globalized his own troubled domestic policy.

Last 5 posts by James Kane

• A November to Remember - November 8th, 2010
• On hope and fear - October 18th, 2010
• Expecting Different Results - September 12th, 2010
• A glaring omission on Iraq - August 31st, 2010
• Employing a losing strategy - August 7th, 2010