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Nov. 20, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: How to make every second of your life come first
Caroline B. Glick: Whither American Jewry
Nov. 19, 2009
Binyamin L. Jolkovsky: Please Listen to this Godcast (5 minutes)
Jonathan Tobin: ADL Crosses the Line with Report Bashing Obama Critics
Nov. 18, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: What Judaism has to say about the secret of the Mona Lisa's smile
JWisdom.com: The (Jewish) Dating Game with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
Nov. 17, 2009
Steven Emerson: How Does the 4th Amendment Impact Terror Finance Investigations?
JWisdom.com: If Frank Sinatra married Edith Piaf with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein (2 minutes) Life lessons from what would be regarded as the most inappropriate lyrics ever sung
Nov. 16, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : When borrowing is stealing
JWisdom.com: Deconstructing faith with Rabbi Warren Goldstein (9 minutes)
Nov. 13, 2009
JWisdom.com Sarah's subjective reality with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 6 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: Obama's failure, Netanyahu's opportunity
Nov. 12, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet By Marialisa Calta : A sweet sweet potato treat
JWisdom.com Does God get tired? with Rabbi Harvey Belovski ( 5 minutes)
Nov. 11, 2009
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Jews and money: When anti-Semitism isn't
JWisdom.com Marriages are not made in Heaven with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (VERY fast 15 minutes)
Nov. 10, 2009
Michael Doyle: Author of book exposing CAIR ordered to remove supporting documents from Web
JWisdom.com If the creation so loudly shouts the existence of the Creator, why aren't more people believers? with Rabbi Naftali Brawer (9 minutes)
Nov. 9, 2009
Mark Steyn: Shooter exposes hole in U.S. terror strategy
JWisdom.com It's never too late to have a happy childhood with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review April 16, 2008 / 11 Nissan 5768

Market magic

By John Stossel


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | "Stossel, who often touts his belief in 'market magic,' attacks lawyers who represent consumers and others harmed by corporations, and wants instead to let corporate America police itself. This is the same corporate America that today is making the dreams of millions of Americans 'disappear' in the form of home foreclosures and job losses. ... "


That's what a class-action lawyer (who boasts he recovered "more than $2 billion in cash for average everyday American consumers") wrote to the Wall Street Journal in response to my op-ed about the parasite circus of class-action lawyers who practice legal extortion (http://tinyurl.com/5dz8b9).


As I expect from litigators, his letter was aggressive, well written and convincing. And he was right about my belief in "market magic." That's the biggest lesson I've learned in 35 years of consumer reporting: The market performs miracles so routinely that we take it for granted. Supermarkets provide 30,000 choices at rock-bottom prices. We take it for granted that when we stick a piece of plastic in a wall, cash will come out; that when we give the same plastic to a stranger, he will rent us a car, and the next month, VISA will have the accounting correct to the penny. By contrast, "experts" in government can't even count the vote accurately.


That's why I talk about market magic.


But I digress. The class-action lawyer, like so many who go to law school, gets the big stuff wrong.


I have no problem with lawyers representing people who are truly harmed by corporations. I'm against a system that can encourage lawyers to enrich themselves by manufacturing grievances and allows them to force even innocent companies to surrender big bucks in settlements because the cost of litigation is so great. I'm against a system that doesn't require a losing plaintiff to pay the winning defendant's legal expenses — a system used by most of the world because it weeds out frivolous litigation.


The lawyer accuses me of wanting to let corporate America police itself. Nonsense. Market competition polices companies — and it does so far better than regulation and lawyers ever will. If GM offers shoddy or overpriced cars, competitors will clean GM's clock.


Nothing keeps a company honest and efficient like the threat of other companies coming along and taking its business away.


The lawyer's sophistry continues as he blames corporations for "making the dreams of millions of Americans 'disappear' in the form of home foreclosures and job losses."


This is more nonsense. Yes, some Americans (2 percent of those who had mortgages) suffered foreclosures, and some jobs disappeared (80,000 last month). But the lawyer and other anti-business hysterics in politics and the media never acknowledge that corporate America built those homes in the first place. It was corporate America that made homeowners' dreams possible by giving mortgages to the 98 percent of homeowners who haven't defaulted. It was also corporate America that created 25 million jobs over the past 15 years.


If the lawyers and eager regulators have their way, they might eliminate some of those bad mortgages. They also might prevent companies from firing 80,000 workers. But it's not worth it. Their freedom-killing "consumer-protection" rules and lawsuits crush innovation in a thousand ways. They stifle business creation and deter homebuilding. For every person they help, they hurt a thousand. If they got their way 15 years ago, most of those 25 million jobs would never have been created.


Yes, America now may face a recession. Maybe. But when people are free and capitalism is allowed, there will be "over-exuberance," followed by contractions. That's why it's called a business "cycle."


That creative destruction is what creates American dreams while, yes, allowing some to disappear.


Americans achieved a living standard that is the envy of the world. It is the direct result of the large degree of economic freedom we have enjoyed. Unleashing the lawyers to "protect" us will kill many, many dreams.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

JUST OUT FROM STOSSEL
Myths, Lies and Downright Stupidity: Get Out the Shovel --- Why Everything You Know Is Wrong  

Stossel mines his 20/20 segments for often engaging challenges to conventional wisdom, presenting a series of "myths" and then deploying an investigative journalism shovel to unearth "truth." This results in snappy debunkings of alarmism, witch-hunts, satanic ritual abuse prosecutions and marketing hokum like the irradiated-foods panic, homeopathic medicine and the notion that bottled water beats tap. Stossel's libertarian convictions make him particularly fond of exposes of government waste and regulatory fiascoes. Sales help fund JWR.



JWR contributor John Stossel is co-anchor of ABC News' "20/20." To comment, please click here.


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