A general well placed first step in encouraging an economy to rebuild itself is to look at past mistakes and try to fix those mistakes that we are still making. As journalist Vernelle Nelson remarks, "If we don't learn from our mistakes, we are bound to repeat them. This country has been here before....Corporate greed led to the Great Depression of the 20s and 30s. That same...greed is what put us where we are today. How many times must we go through this before we learn?"² As much as we can learn from our mistakes, we can also learn from what leaders of the past did right. The Los Angeles Times reports that "Nine out of 10 polled said the economy was doing badly. More than three-quarters said the country was facing a crisis, and more than half were worried the downturn would threaten their household’s financial security."³ One action, taken by the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt during the depression and the leadership of Rudy Giuliani after the attacks of September 11, is to try and eliminate the fear of the people to spend their money in a normal and productive manner. Economist Charles Wheelan explains that "The loss of confidence caused by a shock to the economy may turn out to be worse than the shock itself... Franklin Delano Roosevelt's admonition that we have 'nothing to fear but fear itself' was both excellent leadership and good economics... Spending can generate confidence that generates spending that causes a recovery."⁴ Generally speaking, this kind of leadership can motivate a nation to start a reboot of the economy, but that is far from all that needs to be done for an economy to be healthy again.

    It is my belief that in order to make a healthy and natural recovery of the United States economy, the government needs to let capitalism run its course uninhibited. William Anderson, part of Ron Paul's Campaign for Liberty, analyzes that "by backing the wrong-headed actions by Congress and the U.S. Department of the Treasury, and by purchasing hundreds of billions of dollars of private securities, the Fed is propping up businesses and financial institutions that either should be permitted to fail or at least reorganize to become more economically viable."⁸ For example, the automobile industry is an industry that has recently plunged to the bottom of financial success. The Federal Reserve gave the industry billions of dollars to try and start it rolling again, which ended up hurting the taxpayers even more. It is my belief that capitalism should be allowed to run its course, and that any firm allowed the opportunity of success should also be allowed the opportunity to fail. Also, the common man should be the one deciding how to spend his own money, not the government. As Gregory Mankiw of the New York Times noted, "People don’t usually spend their money buying things they don’t want or need, so for private transactions, ...inefficient spending is not much of a problem. But the same cannot always be said of the government. If the stimulus package takes the form of bridges to nowhere, a result could be economic expansion as measured by standard statistics but little increase in economic well-being."⁹ Capitalism is a policy that the United States was founded on, and must adhere to.

    In order for the United States economy to recover in a healthy manner under the leadership of President Obama, I believe that he must hear the advice of Ron Paul and instill some security in the minds of the people. The administration must learn from past mistakes and try its best to lower the government regulation of trade and the economy. Federal Law must do the duty it was put in place to do and not overstep its boundaries. Also, I believe that trade with foreign countries is an integral part of the recovery strategy, and also leading to unifying the world under a universal culture of peace. Michael Shermer, executive director of the Skeptics Society and columnist for Scientific American makes a point that "The slow but steady spread of liberal democracy and market capitalism, the establishment of environments that spawn interpersonal and international trust, the transparency of political power and economic hegemony, the availability and accessibility of all knowledge for everyone everywhere, and the opening up of political and economic borders that will serve, [are] in the words on a plaque posted at the Suez Canal: To Open the World to All People."¹⁰