I'm Still On Krugman

Paul Krugman takes to the op-ed page of the New York Times yesterday to illustrate just now narrow his vision is, penning a piece about how well Obama is actually treating business, despite the claims of business leaders who seem to feel that they are getting the short end of the stick from Obama’s administration.

I’d say Krugman is actually valid in all of his assertions, but misses a larger picture and a good part of why business has become disenchanted with Obama and liberals at large, and why they are feeling nervous about those liberals remaining in charge.

Obama and those who supported him passed “health care reform” largely by demonizing health insurance companies; by demanding that insurance companies be “held accountable,” and saying repeatedly that the American public was being “held hostage” by insurance companies. It was a year-long rant in which Obama, Democrats and the liberal portion of the media blamed insurance companies almost entirely for the high cost of health care and for all of the other undesirable features of our system.

The whole campaign became less about what it would do for the American public than about what it would do to health insurance companies.

The campaign to pass finance reform is shaping up in similar fashion; as a rant about the evils of financial institutions and about how their pillaging of the American people has to be stopped.

While there is element of truth in both campaigns, the degree with which the Obama campaign embraces the battle is understandably discouraging to the business affected by these campaigns. A business cannot help but be nervous when faced by a government who uses as one of the main tools in its arsenal a verbal onslaught of demonizing an entire business model in order to pass legislation it deems to be favorable. Even if that legislation itself is not hurtful to that business, the year-long verbal assault from the nation’s leadership is.

Obama has demonized insurance companies, financial institutions and the oil business in his first eighteen months in office. He may be right to do so, and these business may be so utterly disreputable that they need to be destroyed, but it’s hardly surprising that business leaders in general are feeling nervous and sensing that Obama dislikes them.

Hell, they’re waiting to see who his next target is.