I would go farther than the author of this article and say: what we need more of in the US is production, not consumption. Consumers are, qua consumers, irrelevant to any market. No one can act purely as a consumer, without any wealth to give him purchasing power. Production *must* come first.

Our government is essentially using up all the "store seed" of our economy through pathetically short-sighted solutions, especially with the bailouts. What the government is doing by bailing out inefficient producers, such as the auto industries, is giving them unearned advantages in the market over efficient producers who could succeed in a free market, but cannot compete with government favored businesses. The government doesn't produce anything itself, it only redistributes what its tax-paying citizens produce; so when it builds roads, dams, etc., it is misallocating resources from where the consumers who produced, or earned, that money would be spending that money of their own free will. This creates further economic "bubbles" to burst in the future. We don't need more government spending--we need infinitely less! The closer we move to a pure laissez-faire capitalist system, the fewer boom-and-bust cycles--created through government dislocations of wealth--we will see in the economy.

(For a great discussion of this, see Ayn Rand's "Egalitarianism and Inflation.")

The fact is: the Treasury department doesn't have answers. What seemed like clear and decisive course of action has deteriorated into a childish fit of throwing money to stave off the inevitable consequences of decades of bad economic policy (since the establishment of the Fed in 1913 and especially since FDR's New Deal in 1932). Those "pragmatist" bureaucrats need a reality check, but unfortunately I think it's going to take a lot more than one Elizabeth Warden to give it to them--and the entire country is going to suffer in the meantime.

http://www.aynrand.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=21923&news_iv_ctrl=2702

Steven Chu's appointment is an insult to the honest scientific community. This guy must be kidding himself if he thinks the United States can switch entirely to renewable energy without seriously compromising our way of life. The fact is, we depend on large-scale industrial power, and windmills and solar power are just not that efficient. Windmills take up space and cost tens of thousands of dollars each to build, and solar power is unreliable at best--after all, the the sun stops shining, but industry does not stop operating.

Scientists like Chu have sold themselves out to the "green" fantasy of a world in which humans have no effects on the environment. What they are really advocating is a doctrine of man-hatred and the total destruction of civilization.

Individuals are making the economic choices they deem most appropriate in the face of a crisis and an uncertain future. It's no surprise that most people are choosing saving instead of spending. For example, if I get a tax cut for $5000 dollars I'm not going to run out and waste it on redecorating my home. Unfortunately, the government is determined to make irrational decisions for me, spending my money on what it arbitrarily deems will "stimulate" the economy.

The only solution is for government to recognize the individual's right to make his or her own economic decisions and act immediately to disentangle state and economy.