Who is John Galt?
I have been giving a lot of thought to the state of the economy these days, and wondering where we're going from here. I am now sitting in a computer lab at Parkland waiting for Gretch to finish printing stuff for her portfolio, an activity that she said would take no more than 30 minutes, despite the fact that we've been here for two and a half hours now, so I figured I'd blog about the economy. I apologise if these thoughts come across as disjointed. I've been writing and re-writing and cutting and editing far more than I normally do. But here we go:
The economy is a vast, sprawling, tangled web of people, businesses, and ideas. And it is something that the federal government should have very little business meddling with. Our politicians are men and women of ideas. They set the rules. They make sure we all play nice. But when they start meddling with the game, the game goes sour. Imagine this scenario:
You are playing basketball with a couple of your friends. You decide to enter a competition. The tournament has referees. One of the referees decides that you've broken a rule, and gives your team a foul. Then, instead of letting the game resume, the referee decides to join the game. One of your team-mates has been benched, and you now have a referee playing. But he is also still acting as the referee. All of a sudden, their is a conflict of interest. The other team recognises this, and they cry "Foul!" They get a referee to back them up, but he does the same thing the other one did! All of a sudden, the game is being played by the very men who were meant to supervise. If the referees are all playing the game, who is going to key an eye on things? The answer is obvious: nobody. And so the game falls apart, and everyone goes home mad. The players are mad because the referees stole the game. The referees are mad because the players got mad and quit. The spectators are mad because the whole tournament became a colossal waste of time and money.
This is exactly what is happening with the economy. The men and women elected to supervise and govern have been taking more and more control of the very thing they were supposed to be supervising.
While I am a staunch believer in a small federal government, I recognise that the financial markets need oversight. Unfortunately, we haven't seen much oversight. Instead we've seen immense meddling in the form of "regulations" and "control". Our elected leaders are not meant to control the economy. They are meant to make sure that everybody follows the rules. Unfortunately, the rules of the game have been changed and we are all seeing what happens when the government gets involved in the private sector.
The sad thing is that this all could have been avoided. How? Easily. If the government hadn't become so deeply involved! But they did, and we are where we are. We can't go back and change the past. But we can change now. And by so doing we can change the future. So what do we do? We, as individuals, need to send the message to our elected leaders to butt out! Get out of the way, and let the men and women of business make the necessary changes! Will people lose jobs? Yes. Will companies lose money? Yes. Will it hurt? Yes. Will everyone end up broke and homeless and starving? No! People who lost their jobs will find new ones. Or they will form new companies based on strong principles of quality and integrity. Companies will reorganise and come out stronger than before. The pain will go away. And we will come out stronger and wiser than before.
I am not calling for a return to laissez-faire government. I am calling for a return to limited government. Stop lending! Stop doling out! Start leading! And I am calling on the men and women of business to start making money! Stop borrowing! Stop begging! Start doing! Only then will we truly be able to recover from the mess we're in now.
The economy is a vast, sprawling, tangled web of people, businesses, and ideas. And it is something that the federal government should have very little business meddling with. Our politicians are men and women of ideas. They set the rules. They make sure we all play nice. But when they start meddling with the game, the game goes sour. Imagine this scenario:
You are playing basketball with a couple of your friends. You decide to enter a competition. The tournament has referees. One of the referees decides that you've broken a rule, and gives your team a foul. Then, instead of letting the game resume, the referee decides to join the game. One of your team-mates has been benched, and you now have a referee playing. But he is also still acting as the referee. All of a sudden, their is a conflict of interest. The other team recognises this, and they cry "Foul!" They get a referee to back them up, but he does the same thing the other one did! All of a sudden, the game is being played by the very men who were meant to supervise. If the referees are all playing the game, who is going to key an eye on things? The answer is obvious: nobody. And so the game falls apart, and everyone goes home mad. The players are mad because the referees stole the game. The referees are mad because the players got mad and quit. The spectators are mad because the whole tournament became a colossal waste of time and money.
This is exactly what is happening with the economy. The men and women elected to supervise and govern have been taking more and more control of the very thing they were supposed to be supervising.
While I am a staunch believer in a small federal government, I recognise that the financial markets need oversight. Unfortunately, we haven't seen much oversight. Instead we've seen immense meddling in the form of "regulations" and "control". Our elected leaders are not meant to control the economy. They are meant to make sure that everybody follows the rules. Unfortunately, the rules of the game have been changed and we are all seeing what happens when the government gets involved in the private sector.
The sad thing is that this all could have been avoided. How? Easily. If the government hadn't become so deeply involved! But they did, and we are where we are. We can't go back and change the past. But we can change now. And by so doing we can change the future. So what do we do? We, as individuals, need to send the message to our elected leaders to butt out! Get out of the way, and let the men and women of business make the necessary changes! Will people lose jobs? Yes. Will companies lose money? Yes. Will it hurt? Yes. Will everyone end up broke and homeless and starving? No! People who lost their jobs will find new ones. Or they will form new companies based on strong principles of quality and integrity. Companies will reorganise and come out stronger than before. The pain will go away. And we will come out stronger and wiser than before.
I am not calling for a return to laissez-faire government. I am calling for a return to limited government. Stop lending! Stop doling out! Start leading! And I am calling on the men and women of business to start making money! Stop borrowing! Stop begging! Start doing! Only then will we truly be able to recover from the mess we're in now.
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