June 29, 2004

Economic Foot Soldiers

In response to a column by Russell Sheldon, senior economist at BMO Nesbitt Burns in Toronto,which I wrote about yesterday, Jeff Cornwall says America's entrepreneurs are the economic foot soldiers of the War on Terror.

The current expansion has seen an unusually slow employment recovery. Why? In large part it is because we are still waiting for the other shoe to drop. Entrepreneurs remember that after the 9/11 attack, those businesses that were already running lean and tight were the most likely to survive the dramatic shock on the economy that followed. There is a general, yet usually unspoken fear that there will be another “event”. So they are being very cautious. They don’t want to be caught with large inventories and bloated payrolls if the terrorists strike again. Entrepreneurs have a general sense of confidence in the economy, but they just don't trust that events will allow it to continue.

... Things are no longer as predictable and simple as they once were. The attacks of 9/11 were aimed directly at our economic system. And they got a direct hit. We are at war. The war has come to our shores, and the enemy intends on attacking the very foundations of free enterprise and our way of life. In many ways, entrepreneurs are the economic foot soldiers of this part of the war.

The alternative, a tax-raising cut-and-run appeaser, is simply unthinkable, unless you enjoy thinking about America dealing with return of Carterism - a stagnant economy and a dispirited foreign policy that leaves America at the mercy of Islamofascist hostage-takers and killers.

For the soldiers at the combat front of the War on Terror to the business entrepreneurs at the economic front, to you and me at the political front, pray we don't lose nerve now. The future of America, the civilized world, and half a billion people in the Middle East who would prefer to live in freedom and prosperity and peace rather than in fear and tyranny and terror, depends on it.