Wynn Lose or Draw

"Government messes up everything it touches," said CNBC's stock wonk, Den­nis Kneale, and every­one on my TV screen chuckled and agreed.

He was talking about the U.S. government's plan to fix the eco­no­mic mess we're in. There was a meeting yesterday evening between all kinds of govern­ment work­ers: cabi­net sec­re­taries, fed­eral reserve gover­nors, sena­tors and mem­bers of con­gress. You had both Repub­licans and Demo­crats. And today, I haven't heard of a sin­gle part­ici­pant who dis­agreed with the need for the govern­ment to do some­thing dramatic.

And yet, CNBC's goof knows that the U. S. government will make a mess out of things.

Excuse me, but it is people like him and his buddies who caused the sit­ua­tion. It was the Re­pub­lican right-wing goof-balls who got the government off the backs of investment banks. What hap­pened was that greed kicked in, and we were standing on the edge of eco­no­mic melt-down.

A few minutes earlier, CNBC was interviewing one of the string of "ex­perts" who ex­plained the situa­tion to ignorant guys like me. We just fell off the back of a tur­nip truck, you know. This "expert" started by saying that he questioned his own support for govern­ment action when he heard that Sen. Barack Obama supported it. What we are sup­posed to know is that Sen. Oba­ma isn't ca­pable of sup­porting any­thing that works or is bene­ficial.

A bit later, CNBC identified their "expert" as a writ­er for The Wall Street Jour­nal. In other words, he is an employee of Rupert Murdock, one of the most bi­zarre right-wing guys in busi­ness.

The universe knows what to do with a vacuum. It stuffs what­ever it finds into it. The universe takes whatever means it has to destroy any vacuum it finds. Sena­tors Phil Gramm and John McCain got laws passed and signed to de­re­gulate every­thing in sight. With­out govern­ment controls, the market­place came in with its own set of controls.

Tell me what I'm sup­posed to do when a right-wing ty­rant buys up eve­ry news­paper in sight? The market­place says I need to go elsewhere, but there isn't an "else­where" be­cause one guy owns every­thing.

Government may mess things up, but I know what to do with a sena­tor or pre­sident who mes­ses things up. I work to get them defeated. That isn't always suc­cess­ful be­cause incum­bents have an advan­tage. It isn't always suc­ces­sful when one lives in Texas (where citizens elected George W as gov­er­nor and pre­si­dent. Twice!)

It isn't always successful, but it is possible. I want public po­licy to be de­bated in pub­lic by peo­ple who are ac­count­able to the pub­lic, not in a board room where the parti­ci­pants do things solely for their own per­sonal bene­fit.

The government is the worst group for deal with this eco­no­my... ex­cept all the other groups.