With the President’s and Democrat’s popularity plummeting, a thought develops that perhaps a political reset of sorts is in order. More specifically, that politicians should stop claiming credit regarding the country’s economic condition.
Even though I’m not a fan of the current President, and even less so the Democrats at large, I don’t entirely blame them for the current economic doldrums. I think what ails the economy right now is something that is, and was, unavoidable.
The economy is too vast. There are too many variables and forces to be quantified and accounted for. There are “unknown unknowns.” So, in my humble opinion, anyone declaring that they know how to “fix” the economy is over estimating their knowledge domain by at least an order of magnitude. Probably several.
So, given the complexity of the economy, I also believe that attempts to control it are fated for disaster. Or, at the least, failure. And here’s where I hope that the political parties might, out of their own self-interest, start to actively distance themselves from such notions.
For many years now, politicians have been claiming credit for something that is completely beyond their ability to control. (I’m lumping both Democrats and Republicans together.) I think it’s pretty clear that their is a natural economic cycle that plays out, with varying degrees of severity. The cycle will occur regardless of what the government does to try and influence it. Politicians have used the cycle for their own gain by blaming the party in power for the current woes, playing their cards that things would turn around after the next election cycle. When things turn around, it’s because of the brilliance of the party in power- and then they get rewarded with re-election.
This time around; however, the pattern isn’t playing out. The economy hit the skids during the end of the Bush presidency and the slide has continued unabated under Obama’s presidency. Both parties have claimed to know how to fix it, and both have failed. “All the king’s horses, and all the king’s men…” as the saying goes.
So perhaps the time has come for politicians to admit what’s plainly obvious- that they don’t control the economy. And if they don’t control the economy, then they really deserve no credit for it’s performance. That, in fact, their own meddling likely results in a worsening of conditions. So, if the only outcome of their meddling is blame for poor economic conditions, then their best course of action is to do nothing. Not only that, but they should actively promote the notion that there’s nothing they (politicians) can do. That the “fix,” as it were, is for people to start actively participating in the economy by coming up with new services and products. In this manner, politicians effectively become cheerleaders of the people, urging them on, promoting their usefulness and worth.
Following this reasoning a little further, it’s not hard to imagine them deciding that perhaps government is a little too restrictive. Perhaps there are laws that create a disincentive for work, for risk taking, for self-initiative and that those laws should be reevaluated to further enable people to go and bootstrap themselves.
Well, it’s a thought anyway.