Quote:
Originally Posted by spence
It's fine to be worried about unsustainable behavior, the point is that the system will more than likely correct itself. Obama's stimulus was perhaps inevitable, and I'd argue McCain would have done nearly the exact same thing. Bush, leader of the GOP was already well down the road...
-spence
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I'm not a fan of the "system" to which you refer--no matter who is pulling the strings--Bush, McCain, Obama, Clinton, Carter, Nixon, Johnson, FDR, Hoover . . . whoever. And I certainly do not think it is sustainable. Once started, it must continue on the same path of expansionist government intervention or collapse. The idea that a little injection of Federal money into the market to artificially kickstart it, as you hint at, is not really necessary. The system, as is known, if left to itself, will correct. The fear is that the temporary "collapse" will be too painful for many. The problem, among other things, is that it has become a habit and expectation that the inevitable "failures" must be "corrected" by government, and by the same implication, the government must be at fault. Thus, having been given, or having taken, the mantle of responsibility, the government not only begins to assume the role of director not only with injections of money, but begins to restructure the "system" with regulations, laws, penalties, tax incentives and and tax burdens so that it DOES become part of the problem. And the "system" does skew to government intervention and control. And it eventually lapses from a more natural, evolutionary process into a planned, top-down directed, more static, theoretical house of cards that constantly needs government fingers in the dike. The process is inflationary, thus creating constantly more expensive and inevitable "fixes." And it constantly heads toward that tipping point of the inevitable percentage of the economy in the government's hand being too great for the private sector to sustain.
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