Why government sucks

As I read the article from the National Review Online below, I thought:  This is a great way to explain why government promises much, and fails in spectacular fashion.  


Government sucks (despite their presumed good intentions) because they try to regulate for the common good.  The many reasons government fails to deliver on promises of protection and proper regulation:  


first, they have no competency to know what constitutes the vague term common good, 


second, they have no way to acquire enough data to make decisions about policy, 


third, they are economically ignorant in general, and have no sense of the economic consequences of the laws they pass or the regulations they write, and

fourth, they never think about blowback or the law of unintended consequences.


Question:  Why do we have to live by laws designed to deal with the (sometimes extremely) rare exception, instead of the rule?  


Are we not much more poor, and much less free because of our own government?


Gun control laws are a good example of this.  Read a relevant article about what growing up American was like only 40 to 50 years ago, before many of the modern gun control laws, or the PC regulations and laws we live under today.


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 So read an interesting, long, quirkily written article by Kevin Williamson, deputy managing editor at the National Review, that he entitled "Welcome to the Machine":

"So, where do you [the government] find help writing and administering the regulations — help to help you apply plain common sense to serve the common good? Take the banks, for instance: The guys who know a whole lot about how banks work work in banks. So, you might disco on down to Goldman Sachs, where they scrupulously seek to accumulate evidence of the production of social value in great quantities, and try to hire yourself some staffers. And when they are done laughing at you, you can head down to some lower-tier, south-on-the-food-chain bank, where you’ll find some guys who got their MBAs at Eastern Michigan and who might want to spend a few years in government work. There’s job security, for one thing, and the pensions and benefits are great. Also, they know that Goldman Sachs cares a lot about how the bank regulations are written for the same reasons that McDonald’s cares a lot about how the all-beef-patty regulations are written, and so a third-tier banker who becomes a government regulator might in five or ten years be a pretty good candidate for a job at Goldman Sachs, which will shunt great fresh roaring streams of social value at people who can help it out compete its rivals in the regulatory arena, Eastern Michigan grads or no." 


By the way, Kevin, thanks for the darn title of your article.  Now I can't get the Pink Floyd song out of my head for days now.

"Hi, I'm from the government, and I'm here to help..."

Quote of the Day 12/29

Government is, or ought to be, instituted for the common benefit and security of the people, nation or community; whenever any government shall be found inadequate or contrary to these purposes, a majority of the community hath an indubitable, unalienable, indefeasible right, to reform, alter, or abolish it, in such manner as shall be judged most conducive to the public Weal.

George Mason

WikiLeaks cables: Bank of England Governor Mervyn King plotted banks bailout by four cash-rich nations

Wikileaks strikes again!

The governments, economists, and pundits said of the big crash of '08: "We never saw it coming."

• “ The notion of a bubble bursting and the whole price level coming down seems to me as far as a national nationwide phenomenon, is really quite unlikely.” Alan Greenspan Fed Reserve Chairman, 2003

• “ Housing activity will remain healthy for some time to come” David Lereah, NAR’s Chief Economist, 2005

• “ The idea that we’re going to see a collapse in he housing market seems to me improbable” John Snow, Treasury secretary, 2005

• “ It’s impossible for prices to go down this year” Garry Watts, Orange County Assoc of Realtors, 2006

• "At this juncture, the impact on the broader economy and financial markets of the problems in the sub prime market seems likely to be contained” Ben Bernanke, Fed Reserve Chairman, 2007

Bank of England leader Mervyn King had a sophisticated picture months before the crisis in the Autumn of 2008.  Such intimate knowledge is probably (at least) months in evolution.  Intelligence is gathered, reports come in, bureaucrats analyze and advise, and conclusions are drawn.

You decide:  Is it incompetence of our leaders and their so-called "experts", or deliberate concealment?

What happened in the end?  How did they try to solve their insolvency?  Through Keynesian style looting of the people:  Money printing (quantitative easing = devaluation), government guarantees (on our backs -- the backs of the taxpayers), government takeover of private institutions (socialistic maneuver, again money to do so comes from us).  Government cannot do anything better than private industry for two reasons:  gross incompetence (no expertise), and no incentive (private industries are risking their own money, and their investors money, that they have to pay back with interest.  Government has no such pressure, although they will pay lip service to gaining a profit for taxpayers).

TARP was wholesale looting of taxpayers by government and federal reserve to help out cronies in private institutions like Goldman Sachs.  This is the essence of corporatism.  This is the antithesis of true free market capitalism.

What does this all mean for the American, British, and European taxpayer (those not in on the corporatist gravy train)?:

"Why make trillions when we can make...BILLIONS?"

“How I turned one million dollars of real estate into $25 in cash”, - Steve Martin.

“I lost a million dollars in the stock market.  I would have lost more, but that’s all I had” - Groucho Marx.

The same process took place in Europe on a smaller scale.  If the Bank of England Governor knew this much at this time, his Federal Reserve counterpart knew at least as much.

How long til ya declare independence and assert your right to Life, Liberty, and Personal Property?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/146196

via Karl Denninger's market-ticker.org