Free markets work

Americans love our electronics. The smartphone has turned into an appendage for most that carries our favorite music, photos, email, contacts, and serves as a virtual vault of our lives, personal and professional.

The computer market has evolved in much the same way as the cellphone industry, upgrading to meet consumers' needs, and desires, for expanded options.

Microsoft, Apple, Dell, Samsung and other industry giants are household names. Desktop computers have transitioned into more portable options such as laptops, notebooks and now tablets, including Apple's iPad and Microsoft's new "Surface." These innovations occurred because of consumer demand, and they continue based on the same driver.

These companies, through their research, their marketing, their sales and successes, and some failures, demonstrate the successes of free markets.

The tablet computers that now slip into the side of your briefcase or into your purse didn't come about because of a government stimulus package or a federal subsidy.

The massive shift from simple cell phones to the technologically superior iPhone and smartphones that run on the Android platform has occurred, not because of a congressional committee's call for action, but out of an industry free to reflect its customers' requests and tastes.

Often during political cycles, the question is asked, "Are you better off now than you were before so-and-so was elected?" America is able to answer in a loud voice, "Yes!" when the question is altered just a smidge: "Are you better off now using your improved electronics and innovations than you were when the desktop, the basic cellphone, etc., were introduced?"

Government competes with and displaces commerce and private industry with inefficiencies untold. As Milton Friedman, an economist and champion of free markets, quipped, "If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara desert, in five years there'd be a shortage of sand."

Let's get government out of the way to see job creation and growth. Free markets work.

Upcoming Events