President Barack Hussein Obama:
If you’ve got a business -- you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.
The best economies are ones that developed in spite of rather than because of the government. The old Soviet Union provided ample evidence that central planning commissions don't do a very good job. And President Obama was rightly excoriated for pandering to people who want something for nothing with his irrational claim that a successful business wasn't built by the entrepreneur who actually built it.
But it's extremely difficult to get the government to keep its hands off of business. An example of this is going on right now in Midland, Texas, where the local government wants tight control over development of a short stretch of highway between Odessa and Midland. It has a connector road to the airport, and that's what has the government exited. The F-Troop insecurity that affects many people out here in the boonies makes them want to put on their freshest face when the out-of-town bosses arrive by air and get chauffeured to town along that stretch of highway. Better that they see raw desert than a business that doesn't meet the highest standard of governmental aesthetics.
To some of us, a thriving business is a thing of beauty, and the best government is one that stays out of the way rather than meddle. (See the results of the eminent domain case the Supreme Court handed down in Kelo vs. City of New London. That land taken from the citizens for government approved economic development eventually became a dump.)
So is it possible to have it all? Great beauty and thriving businesses?
The government is only concerned with the surface. So here's a compromise. In a previous post about this I suggested tall fences between the roadway and the businesses painted with murals to look like the solemn desert that drivers see now. But here's another alternative.
Go ahead and let the landowners build whatever buildings they want, then take voluntary donations from those who are dissatisfied with the aesthetics and use the money to build a facade and hire the artists to paint murals. The artists at at Dashart.com.ua could put up some very interesting images.
Their work has a fairy tale look to it. So maybe for Texas a theme focusing on the legends of the wild west might be appropriate. Pecos Bill meets Yosemite Sam. Throw in caricatures of Elfego Baca for good measure.
Or better yet, who better to do the art work than Midland's own Rubi Sosa?
Having it all, a thriving economy behind a thing of beauty. Everybody's happy.
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