It is a recurring theme throughout the history of civilization. Greed, simple human rapacious greed, overtakes a sufficient number of people with sufficient influence over public policy to drive the bifurcation of society into the haves and the have-nots. Boom & bust, peaks and troughs, sine waves, all these cycles that are really what economic regulation is all about. But to the greedy, who never have enough, all that burdensome regulation is keeping them from acquiring the kind of riches they need. Therefore the regs are evil and must go. They sell this notion to the very people who are most helped by those very regulations. And, every time, they do it with the same arguments because everybody who remembers how dumb these arguments were the last time is now dead. And you can’t kill an idea, even a bad one. So we fall for it every time. "It isn’t your fault that you’re not rolling in clover. It’s those others. Those people (fill in your intended fall-guy; Jews, Irish, Italians, Mexicans, Africans, ….) that are to blame for your failings. THEY are taking your jobs. And your women. And all these handouts to the poor. They’re just lazy and shiftless. It’s their choice to be lazy and shiftless and just sponge off everybody else. Throw them off the dole and make them earn their keep or die trying. We have to do this so that we can compete around the world.
It is a recurring theme throughout the history of civilization. Greed, simple human rapacious greed, overtakes a sufficient number of people with sufficient influence over public policy to drive the bifurcation of society into the haves and the have-nots. Boom & bust, peaks and troughs, sine waves, all these cycles that are really what economic regulation is all about. But to the greedy, who never have enough, all that burdensome regulation is keeping them from acquiring the kind of riches they need. Therefore the regs are evil and must go. They sell this notion to the very people who are most helped by those very regulations. And, every time, they do it with the same arguments because everybody who remembers how dumb these arguments were the last time is now dead. And you can’t kill an idea, even a bad one. So we fall for it every time. "It isn’t your fault that you’re not rolling in clover. It’s those others. Those people (fill in your intended fall-guy; Jews, Irish, Italians, Mexicans, Africans, ….) that are to blame for your failings. THEY are taking your jobs. And your women. And all these handouts to the poor. They’re just lazy and shiftless. It’s their choice to be lazy and shiftless and just sponge off everybody else. Throw them off the dole and make them earn their keep or die trying. We have to do this so that we can compete around the world.