Goolsbee is Puzzled

Austin Goolsbee, a University of Chicago economics professor, who has lugged a lot of water for the Obama Adminstration, was on TV this morning on CNBC wondering out loud why there is so little capital expenditure in the US economy.  Unlike prior economic recoveries, this one is anemic and one rightly can look at the attitude of businesses toward expanding plant and equipment (and hiring employees) as the main culprit. But why?

To Goolsbee, it is simple irrationality.  Businesses just don't get it, according to Goolsbee.  He knows best, I guess. That seems to be a consistent theme of the Obama Administration and their economists.  Businesses don't know what they are doing.  They should be excited by Obamacare, massive new taxes and regulation, and constant demonizing from the White House.  That businesses don't appreciate all of these daggers to the heart comes as a huge surprise to Goolsbee.

You have to wonder why ideology so clouds the judgment of these economists.

Businesses are interested in making money.  Their shareholders are interested in making returns -- dividends, capital gains.  Government is interested in squashing all of this and has been successful beyond their wildest dreams.

If the Obama folks had even a minimal interest in the economic welfare of Americans, they would immediately approve the Keystone pipeline project.  That this project has once more been put on hold speaks volumes about the economic sanity of the Obama Administration and its economists like Goolsbee.

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