OK, I've had it. http://www.baltimoresun.com/features...,2398603.story
Back when the government took over GM, we joked on this and a couple of other forums that rather than buy a failing business it would be more effiicient for the government to have a national lottery and give people money to buy a car. Then the geniuses in Washington came up with the "Cash for Clunkers" lottery - you knew if you were a winner without even having to scratch off the glue on the ticket. The only problem was their $1 Billion rough estimate ran out in less than 5 days, but Congress quickly rectified that problem by just upping the jackpot by $2 Billion. Also, an unintended consequence is that the prices for used cars have gone up, so the forces of supply and demand are now extracting a price from the people who rely on used cars to meet their transportation needs. I'll bet they didn't know they'd be helping pay for somebody's new car.
During that time, we had some fun with "Cash for Wide Screen TV's." We're not quite there yet, but we're getting close with the "Refrigerator Lottery". It appears that the Refrigerator Manufacturers' PAC must be almost as effective as the Auto Lobby. This one's slated to only cost about $300 million, but given their track record using "back-of-the-napkin" accounting, we just know that figure will be at least $1 Billion before it's all over.
It's frustrating to make an outlandish joke about a subject and then later learn that somebody in Washington had actually planned to do something along those lines and spend OUR MONEY on it. I'm not implying that our jokes actually inspired someone to act, but I'm astounded that serious people are allocating serious bucks to projects that really don't deserve anything more that a flippant reference on a public forum at best.
Also, I'd like for someone to explain why anyone would be foolish enough to cough up $800 for a refrigerator just because the government is going to kick in $100 or so. The "green" argument doesn't cut it, because there's no turn-in feature for the old appliances. That means that most of those old refrigerators will wind up in people's garages or bonus rooms storing beer for the big game, still eating up electricity and still leaking CFC's into the atmosphere. More importantly, do the bureaucrats not understand that $800 spent on a refrigerator is simply $800 that won't be spent on a Washer & Dryer or a Wide Screen TV? Even when the government chips is, there still ain't no free lunch. Rather than confiscate our money, skim some off the top, and give it back to us in targeted spending schemes, why not just let us keep it in the first place and trust us to make our own rational spending decisions? (I'll stipulate that the spending schemes are being financed with debt right now, but eventually the repayment on the debt will be confiscated from us or our decesndants through higher taxes, inflation, or a combination of both.)
I think our politicians need a basic economics lesson, so lets send them all a balloon. Tell them to blow it up and observe how perfectly round it is because the forces of nature will equailize the air pressure without any outside interference. Then tell them to squeeze the balloon at some point and watch how their efforts do nothing but distort the balloon's shape since the total amount of air in the balloon is unchanged and its surface area remains constant. It's true that some people are skilled at squeezing & distorting ballons into all sorts of fancy, recognizable shapes and they often produce impressive results. But we need to tell our politicians that while they may think they're fashioning a perfect representation of a dog, it's beginning to look more and more like a duck-billed platypus with a third eye.
Back when the government took over GM, we joked on this and a couple of other forums that rather than buy a failing business it would be more effiicient for the government to have a national lottery and give people money to buy a car. Then the geniuses in Washington came up with the "Cash for Clunkers" lottery - you knew if you were a winner without even having to scratch off the glue on the ticket. The only problem was their $1 Billion rough estimate ran out in less than 5 days, but Congress quickly rectified that problem by just upping the jackpot by $2 Billion. Also, an unintended consequence is that the prices for used cars have gone up, so the forces of supply and demand are now extracting a price from the people who rely on used cars to meet their transportation needs. I'll bet they didn't know they'd be helping pay for somebody's new car.
During that time, we had some fun with "Cash for Wide Screen TV's." We're not quite there yet, but we're getting close with the "Refrigerator Lottery". It appears that the Refrigerator Manufacturers' PAC must be almost as effective as the Auto Lobby. This one's slated to only cost about $300 million, but given their track record using "back-of-the-napkin" accounting, we just know that figure will be at least $1 Billion before it's all over.
It's frustrating to make an outlandish joke about a subject and then later learn that somebody in Washington had actually planned to do something along those lines and spend OUR MONEY on it. I'm not implying that our jokes actually inspired someone to act, but I'm astounded that serious people are allocating serious bucks to projects that really don't deserve anything more that a flippant reference on a public forum at best.
Also, I'd like for someone to explain why anyone would be foolish enough to cough up $800 for a refrigerator just because the government is going to kick in $100 or so. The "green" argument doesn't cut it, because there's no turn-in feature for the old appliances. That means that most of those old refrigerators will wind up in people's garages or bonus rooms storing beer for the big game, still eating up electricity and still leaking CFC's into the atmosphere. More importantly, do the bureaucrats not understand that $800 spent on a refrigerator is simply $800 that won't be spent on a Washer & Dryer or a Wide Screen TV? Even when the government chips is, there still ain't no free lunch. Rather than confiscate our money, skim some off the top, and give it back to us in targeted spending schemes, why not just let us keep it in the first place and trust us to make our own rational spending decisions? (I'll stipulate that the spending schemes are being financed with debt right now, but eventually the repayment on the debt will be confiscated from us or our decesndants through higher taxes, inflation, or a combination of both.)
I think our politicians need a basic economics lesson, so lets send them all a balloon. Tell them to blow it up and observe how perfectly round it is because the forces of nature will equailize the air pressure without any outside interference. Then tell them to squeeze the balloon at some point and watch how their efforts do nothing but distort the balloon's shape since the total amount of air in the balloon is unchanged and its surface area remains constant. It's true that some people are skilled at squeezing & distorting ballons into all sorts of fancy, recognizable shapes and they often produce impressive results. But we need to tell our politicians that while they may think they're fashioning a perfect representation of a dog, it's beginning to look more and more like a duck-billed platypus with a third eye.
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