Saturday, March 15, 2008

Forget It - The Economy Can't Be Fixed

Where did we get this idea that the economy can be fixed?

Let's think about this for a minute. The economy is the sum of all the economic acts of individual human beings. We each have needs and we have to produce or had to have produced something we can trade for what we need. We take what we have and we go to the market and look around at what is for sale and how much it costs. From that, we make our choice and trade what we have for what we want. That is what it means to take an economic action.

Who can fix that?

There is nothing wrong with the economy. It is doing what it needs to do and has to do. The politicians are essentially saying this, "We fear that you will get angry and riot if you lose money or lose your home; therefore instead of allowing you people to make rational choices, we will pass a law so you will have to make irrational choices." (See Brian Simpson's Markets Don't Fail, 2005 http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_/105-0109764-8601260?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks%3Arelevance-above&field-keywords=Markets+Don%27t+Fail&x=13&y=16)

What this really says is: "We, the government, are incompetent to regulate the proper use of force. If we were competent, we would not fear a riot. We know that had the proper use of force been established, you would know better than to irrationally take your losses out on other people."

The government's purpose is the regulation of force, not the regulation of the economy. We will never be able to trust a politician until he talks straight about his job. When they say they are going to provide these other things for you, we know they are lying. They cannot do it except as a kind of "representation" of what they say they can produce.

So long as we believe that the government can fix the economy, we trade the rational choices of millions of people for the ignorance of a politician who can't do what he says he can do.

What is the solution? Get the government out of the way so we can make the full range of rational choices. In the meantime, vote for the idiot of your choice.

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