Sara's Uncle, William N. Walker, former Deputy Director of The White House Office of consumer Affairs, has written an inciteful article about his experiences with Nixon's Wage and Price Freeze policies Forty years ago, and looks at how we should look at these historic mistakes that launched the U.S. economy into a decade of unprecedented turbulence, punctuated by episodes of hyperinflation, shortages, high interest rates and stagnation.
Walker reminds us of how Nixon wanted to use government policy to fix the economy. He failed and looking back over forty years, we can survey the wreckage.
Walker warns us that Obama and the Democratic Party are now advocating using similar government policies to fix things they don’t like: unemployment, healthcare, financial institutions, to name a few.
The message from forty years ago is this: be very cautious. Government policy can cause serious harm with all the best of intentions. Just look at what happened to Nixon’s wage and price control program.