What If We're Wrong About the Economy? By Neil Cavuto

Source: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,510610,00.html

March 25, 2009


I'm not here to rain on anyone's parade, but what if we're wrong?

What if all the spending, the bank rescuing — all of it — what if it's just wrong? And worse, just not needed?

What if the clear signs of improvement we're seeing in the economy now are all the proof we need that we don't need more government spending now?

That new home sales are picking up. Existing home sales are picking up. Mortgage applications are picking up. And just today, news that durable goods orders — that's big factory stuff — are picking up.

Smart folks say these are all anomalies. Well, they're getting to be a lot of anomalies, aren’t there?

So what if the smart folks are wrong? What if all this spending is wrong? What if all we've been betting our future on is wrong too?

What if the government is spending hundreds of billions of dollars pushing green technology and it turns out the folks whose dollars it's spending aren't all that keen on green technology?

Hybrid vehicle sales are down. Hybrid vehicle expansion plans are down too.

Now maybe that's just gas prices or maybe that's the government assuming the next big thing and coming up with a big zero.

Just like it assumed more than a century ago that the horse and buggy industry was a vital American staple, completely missing the auto boom that would become an even bigger one. Just like it missed the biotech rage in the 1980s and this thing called the Internet in the 1990s.

Sadly, the government doesn't decide the next big thing. We do.

And no matter how it coaxes and prods, pushes and dictates, it can never get us to do what it thinks we should do.

We decide.

Markets decide.

Free will, not government edict.

The government can choose to ignore reality, but we can't. Because it's our government. And you know what else? It's our money too.

Watch Neil Cavuto weekdays at 4 p.m. ET on "Your World with Cavuto" and send your comments to cavuto@foxnews.com