Stephen Soukup of The Political Forum reviews In Praise of Profits! by Edward Yardeni:
American business and Americans’ appreciation for business success are being undermined from within, by ignorance, sloppy analysis, and self-serving corruption. In Praise of Profits is Ed Yardeni’s brave and thoughtful attempt to set the record straight and restore the nation’s faith in entrepreneurship, success, and wealth creation.
Worse still, from the perspective of those of us focused on state policy, Biden’s proposals threaten more of the blunt-force federal interventions that have exacerbated the very ills they claim to cure, all while undercutting state and local leaders who currently enjoy significantly more public trust than do federal agencies and officials.
Take, for example, the bipartisan $1.2 trillion infrastructure package that funds roads, bridges, rural broadband, and other items popular among everyday Americans. If allowed to run the course traditional for such laws, these funds might have aided a great many communities. Biden’s activist agency officials, however, can’t resist the temptation to creatively interpret the law’s terms in order to advance their Build Back Better agenda. Guidance trickling out of their offices reveals that standard formulas for allocating highway funding to states will be altered to reduce local decision-making and flexibility; enforce cumbersome environmental reviews that focus on climate change; prioritize electric cars; and impose race, gender, and other quotas at every stage from planning to bricklaying. . . .