President Obama has now taught our country this lesson afresh, by counterexample. No president in our lifetime has spoken of the rich so disparagingly and with such down-his-nose moral superiority, regulated them more gallingly, spoken more insistently about raising their taxes (not once, but again and again), and portrayed them as enemies of workers and the poor. 

Meanwhile, the US Census Bureau has just released data which show that under Obama the raw numbers of those below the official poverty line have hit a level (43.6 million) never seen during the 51 years of recording such numbers. The percentage (14.3 per cent) of the poor has hit heights not seen since 1994. Census Bureau and other figures show, ironically, that no demographic group has suffered as much from loss of jobs, youth unemployment, diminished income, and longer periods out of work than black Americans. How can this be? No one can fault Obama for coming into office during a severe recession. But people do fault him for achieving much less than other presidents in similar recessions, who fairly rapidly turned downturns into upturns. They also blame him for failing to achieve the success from his policies that he himself predicted. He misunderstood reality.

The President is said to be a very bright man. How can it be, then, that he still doesn't understand that to create more employees he needs to inspire more employers — and that he can't find the funds to increase the labour pool unless he increases the pool of capital. The indispensable way to generate good, well-paying jobs in the market economy is by encouraging, cajoling, praising and challenging men and women of high animal spirits to do creative things with their capital. Like it or not, the way to create jobs, to raise up both workers and the poor alike, lies in shifting the interests and creative economic juices of the rich — and also of the not-yet-rich but lean and hungry — towards creating more wealth. This they do through creating new products, services, technologies and industries. Most became rich by being unusually creative people. So use them, don't abuse them.

There is an old maxim that you can more quickly get a man to loosen the heavy cloak he has tightly wound around him by letting the sun beam warmly upon him than by sending icy blasts of howling wind against him. Another maxim puts it: you can catch more flies with a spoonful of honey than with a jug of vinegar.