A question Mitt Romney would never ask nor need to

As the Republicans, slowly but surely, get closer to either nominating Mitt Romney or ensuring the re-election of Barack Obama by nominating someone else, it is important to recognize there are fundamental differences between the candidates. There is only one candidate, Republican or Democrat, who truly understands the free enterprise economy we have, and how it works, and that candidate is Mitt Romney.

To illustrate this, I will pick up on a story that has been featured recently in the New York Times and Forbes magazine:

When Barack Obama joined Silicon Valley’s top luminaries for dinner in California last February, each guest was asked to come with a question for the president. But as Steven P. Jobs of Apple spoke, President Obama interrupted with an inquiry of his own: what would it take to make iPhones in the United States? Why can’t that work come home? Mr. Obama asked. Mr. Jobs’s reply was unambiguous. “Those jobs aren’t coming back,” he said.

In other words, Obama interrupted Steve Jobs to ask why iPhones were not made in the U.S.  It's a dumb question if you understand the global economy and the free market system.  Although Obama probably did not realize it, Jobs was being both kind and condescending by giving the President the simple, short answer: "those jobs aren't coming back."  If Jobs had taken the time to explain all the aspects of the economy that today mandate that iPhones be manufactured in China, he would have taken the rest of the evening to basically explain global economics101 to Barack Obama and bored everybody else present at the dinner.

I think Mitt Romney is probably right that Barack Obama is a nice guy who is trying to do the right thing, but he's way over his head and doesn't understand the economy and how private enterprise creates jobs. As to the other GOP candidates, Santorum and Gingrich are as dumb as Obama when it comes to the economy--they have no experience in the private sector creating jobs and the way they talk evidences that fact.  Ron Paul has an imperfect understanding of the economy (Austrian School) but I will grant that he would not have asked Jobs such a question because Paul's basic philosophy is that Apple will create jobs where it is advantageous for them to do so, and otherwise "it is none of your business."

That said, Romney would not have asked such a question, because he doesn't need to.  He understands WHY Apple is manufacturing in China. He understands that those are not the jobs ($2.00 an hour wages) we want in the U.S., etc.  He understands the economy and how it works and what the government can do to encourage private enterprise to create the kind of jobs we so desperately need.

You can read the Forbes magazine article yourself for a fuller understanding of why Obama's questions to Steve Jobs were dumb, but here's an excerpt:

We do not want iPhones to be made in America. We are fortunate that China is willing to work really hard to assemble them for us. I would rather my children designed iPhones than made them. For our young generation, 400,000 workers in rows and rows assembling iPhones is a scene that they could comprehend only in a Charles Dickens’ novel. The day that America starts to assemble iPhones will be the day that China is designing those cool products. That will be a day when our smartest and brightest young people are flocking to China.

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