Cassandra Politics

So, one of the fun benefits of being a libertarian is the almost universal dislike in which the majority of the political classes hold your ideas. Right now, a whole bunch of us are looking at the stimulus and saying "This won't do what you want, and has a whole host of bad effects you don't want." Is anyone paying attention? Not so much. The ignuts are fixing to screw us all, and when it all fails spectacularly, some of us can say "Told ya! Sure did." Whee! It's a very small consolation prize in lieu of a limited government and an unfucked economy.

What's even more dispiriting is the current rush to worship at the altar of government intervention. Oh, noes! Something bad happened! The gummint must fix it! Never mind that in many people's opinions (mine included) the ham-handed attempts to micromanage bits of the economy caused the problem in the first place. So, a crisis caused in large part by government intervention will be solved by government intervention? Hmm. New crisis in 3... 2... 1...

Finally, I'll also point out the two most important words in Latin: caveat emptor. A whole bunch of people bought a whole bunch of weird derivatives and mortgage backed securities without understanding what they were buying or how the whole thing worked. Quite bluntly, I should not (nor should the rest of you taxpayers) subsidize someone's incompetence. If you bought a bunch of dodgy financial instruments and are now going bankrupt, so sorry, sucks to be you, make better choices next time. Similarly, if you signed up for a mortgage you didn't understand and can't afford, so sorry, sucks to be you, rent an apartment and move on with your life. Learn from the experience and grow into a financially responsible young butterfly, caterpillar.

Anyhow, mark me down for one "not gonna work" prediction entree with a side dish of "horrible unintended consequences". If my orders fail to materialize, I'll roast up the crow and get to eatin'. But I'm confident my dishes will arrive.