One of the reasons the economy is down the shitter is
that government doesn't know when to leave things alone, and therefore
repeats the same old mistakes. The usual cycle is as follows:
1) Free
(or relatively free) markets make a mistake, which happens from time to
time.
2) Rather than let relatively free markets correct those mistakes
and punish those who make them, which markets are uniquely qualified to
do, politicians decide they must do something, presumably to justify
their existence.
3) Politicians enact regulations which they claim will
fix the problem that markets would have fixed anyway.
4) Politicians pat
themselves on the back and tell voters they're looking out for the
little guy.
5) Since regulatory bureaucrats are not smart enough to
anticipate all the issues that may arise in a complex economy, and since
regulations distort market signals, and since the regulated entities
are usually pretty good at figuring out ways around the regulations,
more problems arise.
6) Politicians then have to fix the problems that
they essentially caused by not letting markets work in the first place.
7) Go back to step 1 and repeat.
The
following is worth a read. Here's one nugget I especially
like: "...capitalism without bankruptcy is like religion without hell."
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