Too many Bidens, too few Elon Musks

Leaders without talent stifling innovation by entrepreneurs

The impending crash of the Democrats in America is entirely Joe Biden’s doing. Rather than leading, Biden spends his weekends in Delaware dreaming up scapegoats for his disastrous policies and the crippling inflation they have created. He exemplifies the depths to which the once great American republic is sinking. Rampant crime, tragic homelessness, millions of illegal immigrants, an opiod epidemic killing American chidren, schools infested with toxic teachers’ unions promoting racial division and teaching “Critical Race Theory” and elite leaders of industry embracing “woke” nonsense and cancel culture. It is hard to imagine a worse set of outcomes from a single election barely a year old.

In the midst of the chaos created by the “progressives” as they call themselves, there are islands of hope. Elon Musk is one of them.

Graduating in business and physics at 23, he started his first business Zip2, selling it the next year for over $300 million (Musk’s share was $22 million). At 25 years of age, he was a founder of PayPal and when that was sold for $1.5 billion Musk earned $175 million.

In 1994, Musk became the largest shareholder of Tesla, a struggling electric vehicle start up. Today, Tesla is the most valuable car company on Earth with thousands of employees and Musk is the world’s richest man. In parallel, Musk founded SpaceEx and is pioneering a resurgence in space exploration. When Russia invaded Ukraine and cut off internet access, Musk immediately provided access through satellite linking devices his own company provided the Ukranians, keeping communications open.

Compare Musk’s contribution to the U.S. economy to that of Biden. Biden has fed at the public trough for his 50 year career and accomplished nothing except persuading enough people to vote for him to get elected. Given power, he has done little but damage the U.S. economy, always bragging that his policies improve American life. Musk doesn’t brag, he just accomplishes what he sets out to do, and his contribution is real, measurable, and demonstrates the power of capitalism unconstrained by stupidity.

Egged on by far left Democrats like Elizabeth Warren and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Biden wants to “tax the rich” and stifle the spirit that Musk portrays, the real strength of the U.S. economy. Biden pretends his policies help the lower income parts of America but that is dogma, not fact. He and his ilk want higher corporate taxes ignoring the reality that corporations don’t pay taxes, they collect them, and pass on that cost to their customers, who are ordinary Americans.

Biden’s policies have created the highest inflation rate in over 50 years. Inflation is like corporate taxes - a tax on the poor who cannot avoid paying higher prices for food, energy and accomodation with those prices including the pass-through of higher corporate taxes. Rather than face reality, he blames the war in Ukraine for his failures, blithely ignoring the fact that his administration simply abrogated the Budapest Agreement signed by Bill Clinton in 1994 in which the United States agreed to protect Ukraine’s independence, and did nothing to prevent the Russian invasion despite having ample warning it was likely.

Leadership matters. America suffers from a void in leadership in the White House but benefits from industrial leaders like Musk. It remains to be see whether “Build Back Better” will further damage America or lead to a renaissance in innovation and entrepreneurship. My view is simple - if government leaders demonize and vilify those who are successful and pretend government can support everyone with handouts, Build Back Better is going to be a Bust.