Assumptions can Kill You (and your economy)

Those most familiar with the industry – the folks who made millions, even billions from a business sector – are the best suited to become the federal regulators who can oversee that sector. After all, they are clearly the most knowledgeable. The “best protector of hen houses would be the fox” theory of government. Let mining and logging interests become the environmental “deciders,” petroleum industry barons draft and implement oil-related tax and regulatory statutes, and investment bankers and financiers rule the SEC, Treasury and Commerce Departments, etc.

We cannot apply the Constitution of the United States of America , which every elected federal official is sworn to uphold, when times get tough. That’s the “when times get tough” exemption in Article… er… I can't find it, but I know it’s here…. We should let power concentrate in one branch of government, surely an efficient choice, without legislative and judicial checks and balances, and we know that the executive branch has everything under control and will always make the right decision.

Our houses are really our saving accounts, which will be there on a rainy day and we can use a home loan or a HELOC (home equity line of credit) to cover an emergency, a lay-off or putting our kids through college. We really don't need a separate savings account, since home prices are solid, right?

We are the most competitive nation in the world; we rock, so we really do not have to fix our infrastructure or educate our children, because we are Americans and we are so far ahead of the rest of the world!

We do not need government interference in business, since corporate America is responsible and will not pollute our air or water and they will only sell pure food and drugs without all those terrible regulations. We need to be more like the wild laissez faire markets of Asia , real “capitalism”!

We don't need government to run Social Security – that's too “socialist”; we'd be much better off if individual Americans could instead invest that same money in the stock market instead of having the government administer the program! The private markets will make that social security payment much bigger. Hey, we don't want government in health care either for the same reason.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I am shaking my head.