An old friend of mine is a fairly rational guy, but has some blind spots. In a recent (ongoing) facebook discussion, he posted a reply to something I said with the following claptrap.
I can easily get past the basics, but would appreciate some actual numbers to support arguments against.
His bit is below the Orange Squiggle of Power:
The economy is not growing because Obama has done three things that hurt job creation from 3 months before he was sworn in,
1. He warned business people that he was not your friend, that he would be coming for your wealth, that he was going to redistribute it to people he likes.
2. He also showed all business people that he would not slow growth of government, he hired 140,000 new federal employees and in fact devalued the dollar by quantitative easing 2 times. This scared many companies into sitting on assets and waiting for a new administration before risking capital in this environment.
3. Unstable regulations and health care costs, no one can price a product, hire and train work forces, when costs of energy and labor are un predicable, and your government is threatening you.
That's all it takes, you need no more than that to destroy a free system. He didn't have to pass any laws, just get in the way, just break the people's spirits, just make enemies with your most productive citizens while courting your least productive. You'll get re elected maybe, but you will destroy all hope.
You can see what he's doing - he's buying into the whole "Government is bad, private business is good" meme, and while I can demolish the basic arguments fairly well just using simple history and google, some details would help.
Thanks!