The endless proliferation of anti-business interventions by government, and the sight of more of the same coming over the horizon from Barack Obama's appointees in the federal bureaucracies, create the one thing that has long stifled economic activity in countries around the world — uncertainty about what the rules of the game are, and the unpredictability of how specifically those rules will continue to change in a hostile political environment.

Both history and contemporary data show that countries prosper more when there are stable and dependable rules, under which people can make investments without having to fear unpredictable new government interventions before these investments can pay off.