Voodoo Economics

(Voodoo Economics)

President George H.W. Bush had a storied career before he made the White House. Naval aviator, Texas oil man, U.N Ambassador, DCI, was in the 1980 Republican Primary with then California Governor, Ronald Reagan, Reagan's Vice President and ultimately a Presidential term for himself. Bush and Reagan had several debates where he criticized Governor's economic plan, which took supply side principles. calling it Voodoo Economics. The theory is taken that lower tax rates generate more revenue and that has been proven time and again. President Bush did not hold with this concept and was goaded by Congressional Democrats to raise taxes. The man who had said "Read my lips" in essence broke a promise and lost the 1992 race.


One does not need Voodoo Economics to have bad policy. Recent examples of bad judgement is the over-active involvement of the anti-trust division at the Justice Department. The merger between Jet Blue and Spirit Airlines and the potential dismembering of Google. Jet Blue and Spirit might be bottom basement as far as service, making even Southwest look good. There would be no opportunity for these carriers to become any monopolistic entity in any real sense. Jet Blue and Spirit can be convenient but that is irrelevant to the Department pf Justice. That being said, Spirit has said that the loss of the merger will probably result in its bankruptcy. As for Spirit employees ?


Not everyone uses Google. Many do but people also use Bing, They use Firefox. There are other platforms that any could utilize, so, why pick on Google ? There are market forces in place and the consumers have a choice. If Google comes to a point where it no longer satisfies its customers, changes would be made accordingly.


Voodoo economics then is government interference in the marketplace that is not required, much less desired. Microsoft spent a year in court because it had to defend the dominance of the Windows operating systems. That had the effect of retarding the company's innovation and delayed the development of cloud computing as well as artificial intelligence. In the end, Jet Blue should be able to merge, Google should be kept whole, and Microsoft should be left alone.


There would seem to be an anti-capitalist bias at the Anti-Trust Division. There was money to be made with Jet Blue-Sprit, keeping Google intact and even not suing Microsoft. There was never any evidence that any consumer was harmed or would be harmed by any of these proposed transactions. But the ideology at DoJ is such that whenever there is some acquisition  or merger breaches some arbitrary threshold, the Division sees the need to act.


Voodoo economics indeed.

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