Page 85 - TrumpsEconEra_Flat

Trump’s Economic Era

In the 1980s, some governments made reforms
that encouraged private investment, an end to price
controls, and lower tax rates. Since the economic crisis
of 2007-2008, the activist ideas of Keynesians have
overshadowed the free market ideas of Austrians while
debt levels have climbed dramatically.

Under President Obama’s eight years in office, the
national debt went from about 10 trillion dollars to 20
trillion dollars. Consider
this, one million seconds is
One trillion seconds
is 32,000 years! four days, one billion
seconds is 32 years, and one
trillion seconds is 32,000
years! A 20 trillion dollar national debt stifles growth as
more resources go to service the debt, especially when
the money goes to foreigners. The high debt also makes
us vulnerable to rising interest rates.

In the Road to Serfdom, Friedrich Hayek
compares modern man to a serf in the middle ages. Life
was tenuous during the middle ages, and the typical
person was eager for security. The feudal system
attached the serf to the land and required him to work
for a part of the year and to bear arms in exchange for
protection, relinquishing his freedom for security.
Incarcerated persons have security, but no freedom.
You cannot succeed in life unless you are free to fail;
risk-taking, failure, disappointment, and loss are the
ingredients for success. If you are not free to fail, then
you are not free to succeed.

Hayek warned that centralized planning that limits
competition leads to tyranny, serfdom, and economic
stagnation. As long as voters look to the government to
protect them, governments can oblige by eliminating

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