Arbitariness
I have been thinking about what has happened in our economy from the so-called “Bailouts” and the money involved.
First, I beileve they were/are uncalled for, immoral, and wrong thinking.
But I believe there is a greater danger than just the money that was unwisely spent. That is the issue of being “Arbitary”. There is nothing that kills production (of every kind) by having arbitary behavior. Let me give you an example. Suppose I was a local official in a community and I spent my spare time in saving the community several hundred thousand dollars on a road project. Then in a matter of a week, congress votes to arbitrarily bailout an industry, with tax dollars that I or my progeny will have to pay. The money spent on that bailout makes my effort in savings look like nothing. Do you think I would spend my spare time doing that again? Hardly.
I read a quote the other day: “The ability to plan is crusial to production”. I think that this is the real issue in this whole problem. No one knows where to make an investment because there is no stability. Who knows what arbitrary law Congress will make, or what changes in the tax code that they will put in place. By the way, we have a term for this type of action: Facism, which is the philosophy that one does whatever is necessary, without regard to principles. Without principles, no one knows what is happening in the future, therefore there is no ability to plan, and no production.