The Joy of Meddling

Ah, the economic stimulus package. This delightful little financial bombshell contains more pork than 500-pound boar. Even more irritating is its general premise, a premise that clearly reflects the Four Laws of Humanity. Let's walk through this logically.

The first assumption made by the stimulus sellers is that the economy will fail unless the government pours money into certain sectors. Here we see Law One at work; the government is attempting to act in someone's best interest. Whose? Their own. Good old Machiavelli is hard at work. Most representatives are probably jumping behind this bill because it is widely perceived as necessary to economic recovery. Thus they protect their short-term political future. Enter Law Two. Widespread ignorance of how the economy works is contributing to a general desire to "fix something." As a result, people call for legislation. Legislation will likely have little obvious impact on the life of Joe citizen and no real effect on the life of Joe congressman as it corrodes the structure of the economy.

This is extraordinarily unfortunate given the presence of the Third Law. Without a new datapoint clearly illustrating the harm regulation inflicts, our society will continue until one occurs. Like boiling a frog, though, we respond only to sudden, tangible pain. Gradual economic shrinkage may be insufficient to jar us from our pragmatism. The future course of this nation may well be a gradual slide to the left. This slide continues until something goes drastically wrong.

Does a solution exist? Memory. Look at what happened to New Zealand. They tried economic regulation, too. They destroyed their economy and took fifty years and a return to free-market systems to recover and start exporting sheep again. As a nation, we must learn from the mistakes of others and refrain from repeating them. They who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. We always think we are somehow above the mistakes of our predecessors. We are wrong. Time to wake up and smell the Marxism.