I have always enjoyed the hilariously demoralizing insights from our friends at Despair, Inc., including the following one which, though timeless in its applicability, is particularly a propos for our present time:
No sense trying to prove to you all over again the premise from my previous post entitled “It Ain’t Looking Good, Folks!” (11/15/2008), namely, that our current economic mess was NOT caused by deregulation, NOT by (all together now!) the last eight years of Bush administration policy, nor by the failure of the free market. Rather, our current travails are due to the reckless and irresponsible intrusion of government into the free market. I invited and practically begged you all to tell me that I was wrong. None of you took me up on the challenge because everybody knows (though few are willing to say it out loud) the real source of the problem:
We are suffering from the domino effect of a credit crunch created by the government, which encouraged and even coerced banks into irresponsible lending practices to non-credit worthy individuals. And to add insult to injury, the inmates who caused this mess, who brushed off Bush Administration warnings about the impending insolvency of Fannie and Freddie and the toxic assets they were spreading around the financial community, have been put in charge of the asylum.
It is therefore not surprising to see their innovative solutions to the problems they caused: including the proposed expenditure of $800+ billion in money we don’t have in order to “stimulate” the economy. It has never worked before, but what the hell, let’s try it again! And even if it doesn’t work, just look at all the federal largesse, earmarks and other forms of sweet and sour pork we can spread around. And with the smoke and mirrors of baseline budgeting, we will start fiscal year 2010 with a government that is about 30% larger than it was the previous year.
Of course, there is one thing that has always worked in the past: Slash all tax rates across the board (individual, corporate, and capital gains), get government out of the way and watch business and commerce take off like a rocket. But that is not going to happen, because it is not in the best interests of the party in power
1 comment:
Leo:
I quite agree with your comment about a larger government not being the way to solve all of the problems of this economy.
It may stimulate some growth, as is proven all the time by the Washington DC area generally enjoying a decent economy due to government spending, but if it is not toned-down as soon as possible as the economy rebounds, it will be very hard to ever bring it back down to current levels and remove government control of the economy.
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