Three and Out

I'd like to share some quotes (and my comments on them) from the "Reflections" section of the new (Dec. 2008) Liberty magazine:

1. Randal O'Toole: "Our entire economy is based on a near-universal faith that pieces of paper with no intrinsic value other than black printing on one side and green on the other are worth something. Once that faith disappears, we are back to tending goats and bartering for survival."

Comment: I couldn't have said it better myself. In fact, I've been saying very much the same thing recently. And if the monetary system is a house of cards, so, as it's turning out, was the stock market, the banking system, and the mortgage market. It's amazing how much "belief in paper" has taken over the metaphysical part of our brains. Maybe it's because real life is too tough, and working with material things is just too frustrating. So we turn to paper for solace and fancy that because the paper in our hands is "worth" something, _we_ are "worth" something. And I guess this is some consolation for low self-esteem as long as the paper holds out... or as long as we're allowed to delude ourselves that it has any value. But when it all crumbles to dust then we wind up with an identity crisis... and that is, IMO, a big piece of the stress everyone's feeling these days. It's not just that we counted on something that was worth nothing to be worth something; it's that we _became_ -- we identified with -- that thing that now turns out to be worth nothing. Judging a man by his stock portfolio was a favorits stunt among the high rollers in the good old days -- yes, a substantial gentleman, a citizen! He might even have a "seat" on the exchange! Well, I suppose that, at one time, there was an Indian tribe that judged a man by how many seashells he had stashed in his grass hut. Actually, that made more sense since seashells do have their uses (they pave local roads with them in Eastern Maryland, for example).

2. Tim Slagle (regarding the bailout): "As a former conspiracy nut, this whole thing reeks of a New World Order. With the banking industry nationalized, how much room is there for capitalism to breathe? Is it possible that this was the final key that needed to be turned for the central planners to lock this nation in serfdom?"

Comment: Well, I'm _still_ a conspiracy nut, and I say the answer is yes. The more I think about it -- and evidence is mounting to this effect -- the more this bailout is starting to look like the greatest economic scam of all time. To begin with, you'll notice that none of the people responsible for the problem have had to pay in the slightest. Most of them are still lucratively employed, and those who've moved on have taken tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars with them. The bailout money not only is not slated to trickle down to the ordinary borrower, or whoever, but is apparently floating on the top of the pond (along with the scum). It is all being done in close collusion with Congress and the Bush administration, and we all know how trustworthy those parties are. And finally, look at the exquisite timing of the whole affair -- right before an election that only happens once every four years? Coincidence? Please. Whoever engineered this massive sting operation knew that it would, among other things, put Obama in office. And why was this considered a good thing? Because he is a collectivist and a statist, and would be the best man to help them make good their gains by collecting from the hapless taxpayer. And of course they would, in turn, acquire an even larger share in the collective power structure than they already had. And why is this a good thing? Because, silly, power per se is good, and it also leads to greater wealth, and... for those in the Regime who still believe in "ideas", it accelerates "progress" toward the collectivist utopia they have all been dreaming about since their youth. They might have gotten a bit of pushback from the Republicans on all of this -- although the Republicans are utopian enough when it comes to foreign affairs. But from Obama and his "brain trust" they will get none, only cooperation.

But! -- you'll say -- what about capitalism, and free enterprise, and fair competition? Don't they believe in that? The sad truth is -- and I'm glad Ayn Rand isn't around to see it -- the "capitalists" of today are anything but. The vast majority owe their fortunes not to free and open competition on the marketplace, but to vast government programs, preferences, and laws that provide them an advantage over their competition. So no, truly free enterprise is the last thing they want. A "partnership" with government suits them just fine, as long as it doesn't impact their bonuses (it won't) and as long as it maintains them in their accustomed positions of power and influence (it will). Oh, there might be a few holdout nut cases who still think capitalism, in the traditional sense, is the ideal way to conduct business. But they're easily dispensed with, as we will see soon after Obama takes office. And yes, it's truly sad that capitalism and free enterprise have been sold down the river by the people who should have been its greatest advocates... but we are no longer in an age of principle, only of grubby greed. Even -- or especially -- capitalism, if done right, requires a philosophical bent; it is a matter of ideas, as Rand illustrated many times. The capitalist utopia of the individual is superior -- and actually much easier to attain -- than the socialist utopia of the group, and yet successful individuals -- i.e., ones who succeed for the right reasons -- do benefit society. (Why is every public library between Philadelphia and Cleveland named after Andrew Carnegie, for example?) But our current crop of "robber barons" benefits no one but themselves -- and the government officials who are their servants.

3. Bruce Ramsey (again regarding the bailout): "I don't want capitalism in ruins in the first hundred days of a president who wants to redo the New Deal."

Comment: See above. It's already in ruins, and has been for quite some time. The "system" hasn't been in ruins, or at least hasn't appeared so, because (to go back to the first quotation) everyone took it for granted that our money was "real", and "worth something", and likewise all the various abstractions and will-o-the-wisps that were represented by money. That's on the perceptual side. On the philosophical/moral side it's been in ruins at least since big business started giving more support to the Democrats than the Republicans -- thus demonstrating that they saw more of a future in collectivism and socialism than in freedom. And on the economic side, we just have to take a look at the gradual acceleration of the breakdown process over the past few years, which finally came to the surface -- and could no longer be ignored by the media or the public -- a few months back. And now that our economic system has been "outed" as a scam and a sham, there is no going back -- it will have to be "brought under control" (another illusion) and Obama's commisars are just the people to do it, since they have "the people" and their interests at heart, unlike those greedy Republicans who, basically, caused the whole mess.

Kind of reminds me of that couple in the papers a few years ago where the husband had shot his wife in the face and then offered to pay for her plastic surgery, and eventually asked her to marry him (again). (And yes, she accepted.) We often wonder, how much will the American public -- by which I mean the middle class, whose days are numbered -- put up with before the suburbs go up in flames? And the answer is... anything, and everything. The Obama administration will be a test of that hypothesis, but I don't expect to be proven wrong.