The real danger to the current institutional order was just demonstrated in Sweden. While I’ve talked at length about the potential financial contagion stemming from the implosion of multiple emerging market currencies it is the growing political crisis in Europe that will shape our future.
Sweden is The Land where Socialism Works, or so I keep getting told by ignorant leftists who cling to the power fantasy that central planning is the only way to make the trains run on time.
Central planning does do that, but only to deliver people into the nightmare of social disorder brought on by the disruption of the natural flow of capital.
Venezuela, South Africa, Soviet Union, post WWII Britain … you get the idea.
But, the effects of the collectivist mindset are far more pernicious than those extreme examples. And it is important we understand how little policies grow into big problems over time due to shaping people’s decisions through government edicts.
Corps Insanity
There is no better example for what I’m talking about than the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. A completely useless organization which sucks up billions in tax money to straighten rivers, build dams and alter the landscape to fit the needs of whoever paid Congress the most in lobbying money that year.
They engage in projects that cannot easily be done in the free market, nor should be done. But their activity creates downstream effects from their meddling which multiply over years and lead to problems which are orders of magnitude larger than they would have ever become naturally.
The Red Tides occurring off the Florida coast now are a political cudgel being swung at Governor Rick Scott to prevent him from moving up to U.S. Senator over his ‘environmental record.’ Now I’m no fan of Skeletor, as we call him down here, but these charges are simply grandstanding.
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