Saturday, September 27, 2008

Meanwhile, Back At The Launch

...China's gone spacewalking. One suspects them of picking up an extra little zot of glee at doing so while Wall Street burns and never mind that of the two spacesuits, only one was Chinese made. (The other was of well-tested Russian make. Just in case? They're not saying). I'm tellin' ya, keep an eye on the Moon, the Red Chinese will claim it if nobody's watchin'.

But in our last exciting episode, the presidential candidates were each lookin', in their own way, for a quiet spot to slip into their Savior Of The Economy And/Or Nation superhero longjohns while the White House plowed pragmatically onward and Congressthings* from the far ends of both parties set up a huge fuss. Each and every one of them screeching about "free markets"and/or "capitalism" all the while.

Here is a hint, O tax-sucking, "campaign contribution"-snaffling scum-in-office: If you are talking about what you would or should do to it, the market is not free. Nor has it been for some time. The mess was created in large part by meddling, by artificially forcing down the standards for lending, home loans especially, pushed down by the Congressionally-created socialist entities Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, yadda-yadda. We haven't got a "free market" in the 'States, have not had for a very, very long while; when it fails, that's the hand of the Federal government driving it over the cliff and when it soars, it's one of two things: either it's found a way around some FedGov chokepoint or found a way to subvert one for short-term gain. Increasingly, the latter is more popular, followed in due course by senators tsk-tsking over the greedy awfulness of it all while covering up the tracks of the money that's come their way from those mean ol' profiteers -- who would have had to resort to less-subtle scams were the Feds not involved.

Whatever kind of deal is worked out, we -- the citizenry in general, from the guy pushin' a shopping cart full of salvaged cans to the fattest of fat cats -- will lose and the U. S. Congress will win. Some of us will lose more than others but we'll all lose: prop the mess up and we get a whopping addition to the deficit which will have to paid some day (and payment in blood and privation seems with every passing day more likely than cash on the barrelhead), or the market goes smash and we endure a lasting, painful recession probably followed by a nice little war, the traditional fix of meddling governments everywhere. Senators, Representatives and their respective deliberative bodies will become more powerful, as will the Executive branch and future historians will point to it all as just another step in the transformation from Republic to Whatever. And our much-vaunted free market will continue becoming more and more controlled.

I wish I had some really good advice; I wish there was a candidate or a party I could point to and say, "These folks can sort this thing out," but any bunch who could do that have got too much power and no person or group has sufficient knowledge and understanding to fix it. Wishing any of them could it like countin' on Santa to bring you what you need: not gonna happen. The "fix" is to get the Feds the hell out of the business of business -- and they have been propping it up, cropping the ears and breeding for a puppyish disposition for so long that were they to do so, the resulting readjustment would make a mess it would take a generation to sort out.

Maybe it should happen anyway. But I don't see the real world playing out like the last few chapters of Atlas Shrugged. We're a bit short of Galts and Gulches an' Midas Mulligan's been in a Federal pen for a good long while now, accused of "redlining."

I'm gonna go shoot bowling pins. I hope nobody minds me callin' 'em by the names of Congressbeings!

Have a nice day?
___________________
* Not for nothing is "congress" in English a clinical synonym for a sexual act between two or more individuals.

5 comments:

Alan said...

$700+ Billion in a rush job?

We're getting screwed.

But it's a typical government cycle:

1. Pass stupid law to "fix" the economy.

2. Stupid law breaks economy

3. GoTo 1

Anonymous said...

Atlas Shruged was the purest fiction. The weight of the world rests not on the capable shoulders of a brilliant few but the broad backs of the nameless hordes. Rand's idea that the world was run by the very bright is the most annoying piece of hubris that ever existed, and if I had the ability to bring her back to life just to bitchslap her back to death I'd do it a thousand times. The world would do just fine without Warren Buffet, but without the Robertas and the Tams and the people who actually- you know- DO stuff, it would go to shit soon.

This is a crisis manufactured- in my mind- for the sole purpose of getting the gummint to make us hand over enough power for them to "fix" it. Creeping incrementalism.

BobG said...

These seem appropriate right now:



"It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly American criminal class except Congress."
-Mark Twain

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies."
- Thomas Jefferson

"It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged." --G.K. Chesterton

Anonymous said...

Congress is the opposite of Progress

Epsilon Given said...

I'd like to second what og said: the weight of the world doesn't rest on the brilliant few. Rather, it rests on the brilliant working masses--the ones who are making their decisions, day by day, on how the economy will work. The sum of what they do is far more effective than anything that any group of individuals could come up with, no matter how brilliant.

But there are also the brilliant parasitic masses, that have been duped, or have just simply accepted without question, or even accepted the state of affairs deliberately, knowing they are a burden, that it's just fine to accept money from government.

The funny thing is, if you have no debts, a fair amount of savings, and own your own house, you could get along well with a surprisingly small income--thus, you could be minimally productive, without feeding the parasites.

And *that* is my goal--that, and to teach my children not to be parasites, too.