PSYCHOECONOMICS

I am not an economist. Quite the reverse: I do not like the subject nor do I like talking about it. I think of myself as a logician... someone that deals with the rules and tenets of sound thinking and proof by reasoning. I would like to utilize logic in the examination of the cuurent depressed state of our economy and the efforts of the Obama administration to cure it.

I heard a very very successful businessman being interviewed on television the other day and he repeatedly argued "It's all about jobs. If people are working and making a living, they will buy the things they want to make their lives more comfortable, more enjoyable, that will spur the production of goods and services and will propel the economy to recovery."

That makes sense to me. But the question I have is this: How do we get people jobs? Unless the Government goes out and directly creates jobs, as FDR did in the 1930's to get the country out of The Great Depression, what can the Government do to spur private industry to create new jobs? The creation of jobs is not a primary. It is the effect of something else. What?

Confidnce. When people feel generally optimistict that their future and the future of the country is bright, and are optimistic that today's problems, some of which there always will be in life, can be and will be soon overcome, and that new opportunities abound and wealth to be made. they will seek to be a part of that future and partake in that wealth...and create new jobs to help them do so.

Let's see what the Administration is doing:

1. Running up the country's deficit to astronomical levels, which we all know, despite the usual protestations to the contrary, will result in increased taxes and a burden on the possibility of future success.

2. Repeatedly stressing the terrible state of virtually every segment of the economy...including financial institutions, the automobile industry, manufacturing, and our health care system, perhaps the best in the world, etc. In other words, rooting the country in a climate of negativity.

3. Wantonly turning over billions of dollars to mismanaged, unprofitable, companies, and restraining profitable companies by limiting executive pay, restraining profitable outsourcing, and mandating employee benefits.

4. Looking to take over more and more of our business enterprises despite being the most inefficient bureaucracy in the world.

5. Showing indecisiveness about the war against terrorism, seeming not to have the will to do what has to be done to win it.

6. Reducing our missile defense systems, keeping open borders, and contemplating the elimination of the most powerful weapons that shield our freedom.

7. Scaring the country into giving it greater powers with questionable claims of global warming and pending disasters.

8. Destroying our individual right to make our own choices in life.

9. Polarizing the country by accusing those who disagree with them of being racists.

10. Apologizing for our actions despite the fact that America has contributed more, by any measure, to the safety and freedom and well being of the world than all other nations of the world combined.

Confidence builders? Confidence killers?

The very very successful businessman was right. It's all about jobs. And unless and until the Obama Administration reverses the negative climate it promotes, and does its job of restoring Americans' pride and confidence in themselves and their future, our economic recovery will be slow and very painful.