Quote of the Day: Freedom and Wealth

To say that freedom creates prosperity is convenient shorthand.

To be more precise, freedom provides a conducive environment in which prosperity, the dynamic of wealth creation, can function.

What is this dynamic? Where does wealth come from? We ourselves are its creators. It is the nature of man to provide himself food and shelter, to improve his circumstances, to discover, to invent, to refine, and to expand.

When free to do so, he creates wealth, creates it again, and creates it anew.

The presence of petroleum was a nuisance to Pennsylvania farmers until in 1849 someone discovered how to refine kerosene. John D. Rockefeller’s fortune was begun in refining kerosene, although before long a man named Thomas Edison had invented a way to light homes that was superior, and Rockefeller’s business had to adjust.

The distribution of alternating current discovered by Nikola Tesla was commercially superior to the direct current Edison built his company on and Edison Electric was forced to adapt to the new improvement.

Wealth is created by the greatest resource of all: human beings. It is people who continually discover lesser resources and put them to use in new ways.

Look about at all the wealth people have created. Buildings and homes, schools and churches, stores and places of entertainment; leisure and literacy and libraries; heating and cooling systems; bright lives of bright lights, bright colors, and stunning clothing; marvels of electronics, digital magic, and the miracle of global communications; new medical techniques, devices, and medicines; high-speed travel and stores stocked full of food, much of it fresh from around the world.

A return to the path of prosperity does not lie in legislative prescriptions, new programs or new plans for what the state must do.

Our prosperity will not be restored by some new tax-cut proposal or new spending initiative; no laws will do it; no charming candidate.

Our problem transcends any mechanical solutions or reform package. We are beyond the ability to fix our problems with process tinkering.

As congressman Ron Paul has noted, “It’s not a budgetary problem. The budget is a symptom of this disease. Americans have to inquire into the nature of government itself.”

(italics original)

This is from Charles Goyette’s Red and Blue and Broke All Over as quoted by Dr. Martin Weiss at the moneyandmarkets.com