Here’s What the Government Should Really Do in the Greater Depression
It’s hard to have a conversation today, or even overhear one, without being exposed to moronic – and I now use that word in its colloquial as well as its clinical sense – opinions about what “we” should do.
“We,” of course, is the government. Everyone believes it should “Do Something.” And it is.
But why deal in half-measures?
Why only send everybody a check for $1,200? Why not buy everyone a new Cadillac to get Detroit back to work, a big new house to help builders, and a $10,000 check that must be deposited at a failing bank and then spent at Victoria’s Secret.
A plan like that certainly sounds like more fun than what I’m going to propose. Especially since Americans are going to be a bit short on fun over the next little while.
They used it all up over the last generation.
I’ve explained elsewhere why we’re embarked on the Greater Depression. That’s a done deal. But here is what needs to happen if the depression is to be as brief and as therapeutic as possible.
1. Allow collapse of bankrupt entities. They’re uneconomic (as their bankruptcy has proven), their managements are overpaid and are proven incompetents. The bailout money going into them is simply wasted. Most of the real wealth now owned by the bankrupt will still exist. It will simply change ownership.
If you’ve dug yourself into a hole and want to get out, the first thing to do is stop digging.
But that’s not nearly enough. At this point, it would be a half-measure. Perhaps only a 3-foot rope over a 12-foot gap.
If you allow the collapse of unprofitable enterprises without changing the conditions that created the problem, recovery is going to be even harder. So…
2. Deregulate. Contrary to what almost everyone thinks, the main purpose of regulation is not to protect consumers but to entrench the current order. Regulation prevents new institutions from arising quickly and cheaply.
Does the Department of Agriculture really need 100,000 employees to regulate fewer than two million farms in the U.S.?
Has the Department of Energy, created in 1977 to somehow solve a temporary crisis, done anything of value with its 110,000 employees and contractors and $32 billion annual budget?
How about the terminally corrupt Bureau of Indian Affairs, which has outlived whatever usefulness it might have had by 100 years.
The FTC, SEC, FCC, FAA, DOT, HHS, HUD, Labor, Commerce, serve little or no useful public purpose. Eliminate them and the entire economy would blossom – except for the parasitical lobbying and legal trades. There are hundreds of agencies like these. Most aren’t just useless. They’re actively destructive.
3. Abolish the Fed. This is the actual engine of inflation. Money is just a medium of exchange and a store of value; you don’t need a central bank to have money. In fact, central banks are always just engines of inflation. They benefit only the cronies who get their money first.
What would we use as money? It doesn’t matter, as long as it’s a commodity, that can’t be cr
Article from LewRockwell
