Daniel Henninger offers a modest proposal for reviving the economy:

"Let's bring back the robber barons.

'Robber baron' became a term of derision to generations of American students after many earnest teachers made them read Matthew Josephson's long tome of the same name about the men whose enterprise drove the American industrial age from 1861 to 1901.

Josephson's cast of pillaging villains was comprehensive:Rockefeller, Carnegie, Vanderbilt, Morgan, Astor, Jay Gould, James J.Hill. His table of contents alone shaped impressions of those times: 'Carnegie as 'business pirate'.' 'Henry Frick, baron of coke.' 'Terrorism in Oil.' 'The sack of California.'

I say, bring 'em back, and the sooner the better. What we need, a lot more than a $1,000 tax credit, are industries no one has thought of before. We need vision, vitality and commercial moxie. This government is draining it away."

Henninger makes a important point distinguishing between the economic and political entrepreneur - the industry made of government fiat versus market opportunity.