Politics and Money

[Alex G]

Fox & Friends: Why Is History’s Greatest Monster Barack Obama Picking On These Little Girls?
http://wonkette.com/479017/fox-friends-why-is-historys-greatest-monster-barack-obama-picking-on-these-little-girls#more-479017

Ever on the cutting edge of political thought, Fox & Friends has a simple, commonsense reply to Pres. Obama’s insane notion that a modern economy depends on a combination of public and private investment: Oh, yeah? Mr. Big Government? What about little kids’ lemonade stands, which are a perfect metaphor for capitalism? Here is Brian Kilmeade interviewing two adorable little girls, Clara and Eliza Sutton, aged 7 and 4, who have clearly not been prepped at all by their Fox-viewing parents. Asked to “tell us about your lemonade business,” Clara replies, “Well, our lemonade is actually homemade but I can’t tell you our recipe because it’s proprietary…the investors actually sign a confidentiality agreement.” Proprietary ingredients, huh? Is it people? We bet it is people.

But let us get on to the meat of the interview, in which young Clara defends liberty:

Kilmeade: Clara, how do you feel about the President saying that you needed help to start this business. And just speak from — speak from within…

Clara: I would say that’s rude because we worked very hard to build this business. But we did have help.

Kilmeade: And your help came from?

Clara: Our help came from our investors, our dad and stepmom, along with other friends and family.

If only those Washington Politicians would just look at the world with such level-headed common sense, huh? Because, really, these girls didn’t need Government to build their lemonade business, they just needed their dad and stepmom to go to the store and buy ingredients which didn’t travel on public highways or have to meet any safety standards, and then mix up their lemonade using water from a privately developed water system, and then set up next to a privately built road in a community kept safe by private security guards, to sell to the public! (To be fair, maybe they do live in some hellish exurban development governed by a dictatorial Homeowner’s Association, and they have a lemon tree in their backyard, and a sugar plantation on the back 40, so yay freedom.)

Leaving aside the ethical quibbles about using 4 and 7 year olds to push political talking points, or the usual Fox News recycling of a “story” generated within the Fox News organization, or even the story’s eerie resemblance to the plot of one of the worst children’s books ever published, we have to ask if any of the Fox producers involved have actually helped children run a “lemonade business,” which usually involves parents spending a small chunk of money for ingredients and children having fun for an afternoon or two, pocketing a few dollars but never coming close to earning back the original “investment,” let alone turning a profit. Most lemonade stands are maybe more like Solyndra, we would say, HA HA! Then again, considering the failure rate of small enterprises over the long term, perhaps it is an apt metaphor.