Posted by
drpete on Wednesday, October 15, 2008 11:01:21 AM
The federal government’s job – its only
job – is to protect individual liberty, that unalienable right each of us has
from the Creator. That is why national
defense is its job. That is why we
properly have laws proscribing collusion in restraint of trade. That is why we have laws enforcement and
courts to sanction those who usurp others’ liberty and property.
That is why labor unions should be
illegal. They usurp liberty of both
employers and prospective employees.
That is why, just as one example, Medicaid should be illegal. Either it
usurps liberty and property from doctors and other medical professionals or
from taxpayers like me who are forced to pay for someone else’s property.* Farm subsidies, ethanol subsidies, sugar and
steel tariffs, subsidized housing, any and all forms of welfare are all
unconstitutional and should be illegal.
* Postscript tangent: If you wanted healthcare services, lacked money to pay, came to my door with a gun, and demanded money to pay for your doctor, I could have you arrested. If you went to your doctor, presented a gun, and demanded free services, she could have you arrested. If you get congress to force either me or your doctor or both (with threat of a gun if necessary) to provide same, that works.
Dr. Thomas Sowell recently said, “Prices are like messengers carrying the
news of supply and demand. Like other messengers carrying bad news, they face
the danger that some people think the answer is to kill the messenger, rather
than taking steps to change the news.”
So when a gas station owner substantially raises price or a hotelier
does so, the hue and cry from the ignorant whiners is “price gouging”. Your president, your congressmen and senators
line up at the mics and decry the selfish and uncaring opportunist businesspeople
and promise to do something about it.
Kill the messenger.
The gas station owner owns the station and the gas. She may offer it for sale at any price
she wishes. Liberty.
You may choose to buy at that price or not. Liberty. You own your money. Is this a good thing from a market
perspective? Yes. Price balances supply and demand. Is it a good thing from a constitutional
perspective? It’s not just good; it’s
essential. The federal government’s job
here is to assure this, not to proscribe it.
Each of us has an unalienable right to stupidity or just being wrong or
making a wrong decision. It’s liberty.
And the job of the federal government – its only job -- is to
defend and protect that right. Behaviors
have consequences, and they should. Some
decisions and behaviors result in profit.
Some result in loss. It’s how
smart and responsible people learn.
Reward and punishment.
Often the federal government behaves badly, and behaviors have consequences. President Bill Clinton in 1995 – pressured by
Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Maxine Waters, et
al; by the likes of Jim Johnson and Franklin Raines; by the Congressional
Black Caucus, including then new guy Barack Obama; all of them, either in cahoots with or coerced by ACORN
– lowered reserve requirements and regulations on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac so
that they could buy more commercial banks’ mortgage loans.** These were the ones that ACORN had
intimidated these banks to make for sub-prime borrowers, minorities and people
of color, people who had virtually no-nil-nada-zip-zilch ability or discipline
to pay back. This wasn’t the beginning
of the problem, but was likely the tipping point.
Banks wrote the mortgages, sold them to Fannie and Freddie. Fannie and Freddie packaged bundles and sold
them to investors as MBS (mortgage-backed securities). Soon the investors started to notice the
salmonella hiding under some of the lettuce in the salad. Behaviors have consequences. The investors stopped buying and looked elsewhere
for investment opportunities.
Wooops. Fannie and Freddie were
stuck. The house of cards collapsed.
So here we are in 2008, looking to a Democrat-led congress to solve the credit
crisis that they and their predecessors – 1938, 1968, 1970, 1977, 2003, 2005 –
created. First mistake. Johnson, Raines, Frank, Waters, Dodd, Pelosi,
Reid, et al, should have been
perp-walked out of congress. And a
special prosecutor should have been assigned to ACORN.
What the lame-duck president did, aided by both POTUS-wannabees, with the
full cooperation of the congressional perps and with conservative capitulation
was to pass a 400+-page, $700+- billion, pork-palace, usurping the unalienable
liberty of each and every American.
Second and supreme mistake.
Incontravertably, congress knows that the behavior you reward tends to be the behavior
you get, vica-versa vis-à-vis punishments. They show this all the time with subsidies
and taxes. So what congress, the president
and the POTUS wannabees did was to reward with bailouts all of those who erred
in decision making and behavior – Johnson, Raines, Frank, Waters, Dodd, Pelosi
Reid, et al, ACORN, GSEs, MBS bankers
and insurers, sub-prime-mortgage defaulters – while punishing tax-paying
homeowners who continue to make their mortgage payments on time and in
full. Third mistake.
Back in 1990, the federal government
seized the Mustang Ranch brothel in Nevada
for tax evasion and, as required by law, tried to run it. They failed and
it closed. Now we trust the economy of our country to a pack of bozos who
couldn't make money running a whore house and selling booze? We saw what happened when Hoover
and Roosevelt – both enamored of that Joseph
Stalin guy – tried to have the federal government control and take over the
private sector. Depression. We saw what happened when the central
government of the Soviet Union tried to run
the economy: shortages, rationing, poverty, and collapse.
The collective genius of the
American economy is its millions of individuals acting in their own enlightened
self-interest, knowing what each knows, seeking profits, working to avoid
losses. Both the profits and the losses
reinforce lessons . . . unless the federal government intercedes, not knowing
what each knows, incapable of knowing what each knows, rewarding mistakes,
rewarding stupidity, punishing prudence, punishing responsible behavior. Ok, you say, but at least they’re gonna
regulate those bankers and insurers and investors and speculators, right? Yep, they’re sure gonna. Fourth mistake.
The federal government wants to
regulate these guys to stifle greed.
Greed? They behaved that way
because the wanted to go bankrupt?
Wanted to lose their jobs? That’s
a nonsequitur. Government wants to
regulate because it can. It’s power. It’s
control. If you regulate speculation,
you’ll regulate innovation, invention and creativity. Regulation is a governor on the economy’s
throttle. It stifles exactly what made America
the most-prosperous nation in the history of humankind . . . by a bunch.
** Postscript tangent: Since the tipping point was probably the deregulating of Fannie and Freddie, should congress and the prexy reregulate them? No. Wrong question. Right question? Should congress and the prexy eliminate Fannie and Freddie? Yes. Read the Constitution, then re-read. That enumerated power is found where?
What should the federal government
have done? After the perp-walk and
beginning the prosecution of ACORN, congress should have passed HR-25 and
S-1025, aka The FairTax, and started
the process of repealing the 16th amendment. No-nil-nada-zip-zilch
infringement on individual liberty or property.
Indeed, a restoration of liberty and property. No rewarding bad behavior or punishing
good. Not government doing;
government undoing. While
awaiting implementation of the above, the federal government should have
suspended the capital-gains tax for three years. More undoing, while allowing more private
capital investment. It might also
have been smart to suspend all federal business taxes for the same period. That would have brought U.S. dollars home
from abroad for additional private capital investment.
Why did we get what we got? Why didn’t we get the government undoing? I mean, don’t behaviors have
consequences? Yes. Don’t bad decisions have bad
consequences? Yes. Yes for us, but not for government.*** It’s like someone said of the late Senator
Wellstone of Minnesota: “He’s the most-generous man I ever met . . .
with other people’s money.”
*** Postscript tangent: You'd be hard-pressed to identify the federal official -- legislative, executive, judiciary -- who, when sworn in (to defend and protect the Constitution of the United States) didn't either have his fingers crossed or had his nose grow longer. Maybe, the last two Supremes and Justice Thomas. Bush no. McCain no. Obama no. Clintons no.