Grab the fiddles boys, I see smoke.......

I have changed my mind. 

I no longer have any concern and temporal angst about the government's totally misguided socialization of the financial system, and (soon to be) domestic automobile manufacturers.  It's just fine that General Motors has a market capitalization of $1.7B as of today, which is less than twice that of just the new line of revolving debt extended to the failing U.S. big-box electronics retailer Circuit City.  I suspect the airlines are queuing up salivating at the opportunity to 'tap the TARP' as well.

The fact that the government precipitated the crisis by inconsistent, ham-handed, and misguided regulation of short-selling financial stocks, and not the excesses of the corporations they blame, no longer ruffles my feathers. They spent the previous decade fumbling, bumbling, and overall disrupting the energy sector, at a federal and at a state level (by their own admission), and now they are using the same playbook on the financial sector.

The government will print more fiat money, further devaluing the USD at a time that we should be shoring up reserves in anticipation of the entitlement crush that the economy is moving into as the baby-boomers hit social security, medicare and medicaid.  They will hemorrhage money in colonial wars abroad, they will subsidize and effectively de-privatize the industries that we spent the last thirty years privatizing, following the lead provided by fine socialist icons like Christina Kirchner, who is currently in the process of de-privatizing private retirement funds so the Argentinian government can raid those like they did the state-operated retirement funds.

In short, they will throw taxpayer money at poorly and partially-regulated industries like the automobile, airline and financial sectors in the hopes that their largess will somehow reform these industries into more capital efficient, productive members of society.  If this wasn't a punchline stolen directly from Atlas Shrugged, it would be almost funny.

And the root cause of this all, according to government, was 'not enough government oversight'. Sure, we need more government, right?

Per a great article written by Veronique de Rugy in the December 2008 issue of Reason Magazine:

"Real federal spending increased from $774 billion in 1968 to $2.5 trillion in 2008- a 225 percent increase- and federal spending per household grew from $11,800 to roughly $21,000 over that period, in constant dollars."

Because if you are a lawmaker, are you going to remove laws or create new laws?  Are you going to shrink the government and downsize your own job, or grow your empire?  Take a guess.

"Look no further than your morning routine.  The federal government has put its imprimatur on the mattress on your bed (through the Consumer Product Safety Commission). The Federal Communications Commission regulates the transmission and content of your favorite morning show.  The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), as well as the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, regulate the coffee you drink and the sugar you add to it.  The USDA regulates the milk you pour in the coffee, as well as the cheese, butter, and other dairy products you might eat for breakfast.  And the FDA has its say about the shampoo, soap, and toothpaste you use with water that's regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency." (also from Ms. de Rugy's article)

The reason I am reconciled to this is that there is no chance whatsoever that it is sustainable.  The government cannot continue to party all night long and never pay the bar tab.  It will, during the next 20-30 years, suffocate all industry and taxpayers, and ultimately collapse into itself.

We'll then have the opportunity to reinvent this great nation from the rubble without all of the expensive and invasive entitlement and nanny-state laws.  Now where did I put the resin for my bow.....

Comments

[Alex]

Except for the fact that it HAS happened already, Christian.

How about the 'licensing' practice? Some people are ALLOWED to do the certain business some are NOT. Is it so much different than the gov. 'suffocating industries'? The line's very blurred actually. It's just MORE obvious now.

And I'm not a libertarian... Ayn Rand / Greenspan kinda' person or something.

MONOPOLISM is evil, Christian. As we all know THE ONLY goal of corporation IS to create a monopoly in it's domain of business, you know exactly what I mean, you worked for one of them.

Regards. :)

[Eric Pearson]

We must return to our foundation of a constitutional, limited government. We must return to the Judeo-Christian roots of our heritage. We must reign in an out-of-control government by the cords of the Constitution and demand its obedience. Our government is like a teenager left too long to his own devices, however, and the process will be neither easy nor pain-free. But when the alternative is considered, it ends with the destruction of our very way of life.

Ronald Reagan said that we are always just one generation away from tyranny. Thomas Jefferson said the tree of liberty must be watered by the blood of patriots from time to time. While states’ rights are to key to restoring our Republic, one other thing is also vital.

A 2 Chronicles 7:14 revival.

We cannot be free men in a free country without the blessing of Almighty God. We cannot be free men and women without a return to the faith of our fathers. John Adams said in October of 1798 that:

“We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Perhaps before our next elections, we should drop to our knees in Psalm 51:10 prayers, and implore God to create in us a new heart, to renew a right spirit within us. Without the hand of God that has steered this country over the past 234 years (and which seems horrifyingly missing of late), we are doomed to be relegated to the dust piles of history, our country, her people and her name but brief bywords on the lips of future travelers to this land

Thank you, and God Bless our Republic of the United States of America.

Eric Pearson
Site: http://www.washingtonpoliticsnews.com