There's No Government Like No Government

Listening to this story on NPR this evening, I was struck at closely it resembled an IPR story.

For the uninitiated, Irrational Public Radio is one of those parodies that's maybe too perfect. I loved it for years before discovering that one of the talents in front of the microphone was Ben Shields, who is on the far right of this cast photo from Shawnee Mission North's 1987 production of The Foreigner.



That's me in the back with a mean on, by the way. I was the villain.

The gist of this NPR story is that maybe India's whole problem is they are far too free. The basis for this is that China is apparently much more prosperous even though they were at least as poor as India back in the 1940s when both countries had their initial public offerings as nation states.

Why, I wonder, is 19th Century America off limits when considering a model? The single biggest leap in wealth, across the board, in everything economic as long as there have been people to notice leaps in wealth, took place in 19th Century America. It's a simple formula, hard money, hardly any central government, only one civil war, and even without air conditioning everyone gets more comfortable.

Dictatorships might be more effective at getting infrastructure done than a bickering, gridlocked democracy, but ask the people displaced by China's ambitious hydroelectric projects how it feels to have no say in where that infrastructure goes and how it's built. If a Chinese deep water rig blew up and burned, causing an enormous oil slick in the China Sea that endangered an entire ecosystem, the Communist government wouldn't even make empty promises to pay all legitimate claims. They'd tell you to shut up and roll with it. That, and they'd be glad to bring bullets and tanks if you're not down with that.

And maybe India's brand of democracy could use some lubrication to get legitimate government projects going. But be careful with that lubricant, it leads to things like TARP and it's sequel, My Big Fat Greek Bailout.

In fact, I think Barrack Obama should be rooting for the so-called 'Tea Party.' NPR has also been reporting on that, and the 'anti-incumbent' sentiment in the country, as if that sentiment was irrational (and this year's level of it would be about right, in the Lobster's opinion, for a fat year when all is well). But my prediction is this: the Tea Party will get Obama a second term.

Because come November, the Republican party will take back Congress and make gains in the Senate. I doubt they get a majority in the Senate, but it's theoretically possible.

Our government will return to the halcyon days of 'gridlock.' Team Obama thinks it has a mandate to fix everything. All their fixes, at least in terms of the economy, involve making everything worse. The Republicans will think they have a mandate. All their fixes are empty talk, because when they're actually in power they do exactly what Team Obama does, and sometimes even seem to be trying to out-Liberal the Dems.

And nothing will get done. Which will allow the economy to recover some from all the help it's been getting. And once the economy recovers, Obama will be able to take credit for it and become the black Bill Clinton instead of becoming the black Jimmy Carter he's on track to be now.