WASHINGTON - Just as you must break a few eggs to make an omelet, President George W. Bush 
admitted on Monday that saving the free market system required taking non-free market action.
The MBA president has repeatedly said that the actions taken by his administration to shore up floundering financial firms would not have been the first choice for a free-market thinker like himself, but he had no choice in trying to save the U.S. economy.
On Monday, at a global health forum, there was no question that the president saw the irony in the U.S. government intervening in the private sector to prop up the financial system in the name of keeping free markets afloat.
Bush said he had not had much time to think about his post-president plans to set up a policy institute for freedom “since I’ve been interested in the free market system — by taking non-free market action to save the free market system.”
The comment made with wry humor was met with audience laughter.
He followed up with saying to baby boomers: “Retirement isn’t a golf course. Retirement, fulfilling retirement, is to use your time and talent.”
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- Photo credit: Reuters/Jason Reed (Bush gestures during global health forum)
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2 comments so far
Wow, the Socialist in Chief puts out two bald faced lies (that he supports free markets, and that he thinks), and nobody calls him on it.
Free markets are not composed of subsidezed corporations, fiat money, artificial interest rates, heavy regulations, and politicians who belive size precludes failure.
Free markets are composed of companies which are allowed to profit when they produce, and allowed to fail when they do not.
Free markets are funded with natural (commodity based) money, not with artificial (paper based) money.
Free markets allow creative destruction: the destruction of badly invested resources to allow these resource to be re-used well.
Free markets don’t reward failure.
Free markets don’t punish success.
Free markets are likely to have high quality education, which would have make the election of this moron impossible.
- Posted by RichWell put Rich. Keynesian economics and monetarism have been proven time and time and time again to be flawed. So why are they following those theories? Easier to get elected by acting like you are gonna fix things as opposed to the Austrian economics of allowing unproductive companies to fail. People are afraid of change, so tell ‘em you will maintain the status quo, even though it will in the end be your nations demise. Economies are like frogs, you can make ‘em jump, but you can’t make ‘em fly.
- Posted by DKJack