And then there was President Carter, who ruined my dreams! During the “energy crisis” years of the 70s, everyone from the President on down was screaming that America had to find more oil or we were toast. It was the “climate change” crisis of its time - “we’ve only got about ten more years before we run out of oil!”. Turned out to be nonsense, of course, but, being a patriotic and ambitious young person I switched my major to geological engineering/exploration. I was going to single-handedly solve the nation’s energy crisis. Carter messed with the free-market mechanisms of supply and demand, intervening with incentives to drill deeper, etc. The oil and minerals exploration industry went sky-high - then bust. I, of course, graduated into the bust. None of the geology mining, or the exploration students from my class got jobs, and most the previous two years worth of grads were laid off. President Carter screwed the whole industry up in his ‘government jobs program’.
So you’re right as usual, Peter. Government should just stay out of it!
Obama promised thousands of "shovel ready" projects and jobs when he was first elected. That turned into an utter farce.
FDR tried to goose employment with the New Deal, and saw employment crash all over again when he tried to withdraw the programs in 1937.
Nixon's meddling in the workplace in 1971 very nearly crashed the US economy.
The reality is there is very little the government can do to stimulate job creation, and even less that it should do.
And then there was President Carter, who ruined my dreams! During the “energy crisis” years of the 70s, everyone from the President on down was screaming that America had to find more oil or we were toast. It was the “climate change” crisis of its time - “we’ve only got about ten more years before we run out of oil!”. Turned out to be nonsense, of course, but, being a patriotic and ambitious young person I switched my major to geological engineering/exploration. I was going to single-handedly solve the nation’s energy crisis. Carter messed with the free-market mechanisms of supply and demand, intervening with incentives to drill deeper, etc. The oil and minerals exploration industry went sky-high - then bust. I, of course, graduated into the bust. None of the geology mining, or the exploration students from my class got jobs, and most the previous two years worth of grads were laid off. President Carter screwed the whole industry up in his ‘government jobs program’.
So you’re right as usual, Peter. Government should just stay out of it!