Is Obama Anti-Business or Anti-Markets? Part I

Below is an e-mail I sent to Squawk Box this morning after hearing two of the hosts debate whether President Obama's policies are ant-business. In a CNBC interview yesterday, the president said that he was in favor of markets. My message was:

Three comments on the discussion this morning between Joe and Carl about whether the Obama Administration is anti-business. First, the financial firms on Wall Street and business are not one and the same. Obama is correct when he says that the financial sector is to facilitate business. Second, Obama is clearly in opposition to the market system since he wants to use taxes and subsidies to reallocate resources in the economy. Obama is smart and the danger of smart presidents is they think they know better than the market where to invest capital. Third, many business leaders, especially of large corporations, don't favor the operation of the market system. They want tariffs when facing import competition, or tax breaks, or subsidies and so on. Crony capitalism is often favored by business and members of both major political parties.

I will elaborate more later, i.e., when this semester is over.