By John Tamny of RealClearMarkets
“Chinese industry will continue to grow, it can’t help but expand with all the reinvestment they pour into it,” remarked an American engineer who has helped construct multi-million dollar projects in several parts of China. “But it will be slow, and uneven, and wasteful,” the engineer added. ~Fox Butterfield, Alive in the Bitter Sea, 1982, p. 279
In the past year the role of government vis-à-vis the economy has changed profoundly. While the U.S. economy has never been entirely free, in modern times the prevailing view was that private business entities should be able to seek profit free of government oversight.
That idea has changed quite a bit amid corporate bailouts and stimulus spending meant to prop up an economy that certain economists believe has stopped growing. What some refer to as the “new norm” speaks to a new kind of thinking which suggests that businesses must look to the government not only for financial sustenance, but for direction in terms of how to operate.