Economics 101: Referee on the take

"Hello, sports fans, and welcome to Memphis, Tennessee, where the Memphis Muscleheads are about to defend their NFL Championship record against the Jacksonville Jocks.  Memphis has elected to receive, and here's the opening kick...caught by Barry Beertapper of the Muscleheads!  Look at that young man run!  He's past the 40...the 30...the 20, nobody near him...TOUCHDOWN!!

"Wait a minute...what's this?  There's a flag on the play!  Referee Obama has disallowed the touchdown on the grounds that the Jocks have won less Championships than the Muscleheads, and therefore, the touchdown is disallowed 'in the interests of fairness!'  Can he do that?  Where's the rule book?  I don't think he can do that...!  Referee Obama has, however, allowed the Muscleheads to go for the extra point...

....

"Hello, again, sports fans.  Fourth quarter begins here in the Jocks/Muscleheads Championship game, which has become one of the most bizarre spectacles in football history.  The score is tied at 25-25, due to a series of decisions by Referee Obama attempting to ensure, as he puts it, 'fairness and equitability for all.'  Half the audience has left and the other half is preparing to riot.  Referee Obama has repeatedly been told that he has no authority to rule outside the terms of the Official NFL Rulebook, but he's continuing to do so regardless of legality..."

Does that sound just completely whacked-out to you?  What would you do if that happened at your favorite sporting event?  Probably more than you're doing right now, while this exact same thing is happening to our economy.

I'm trying to put this in the most simple terms possible, so as to ensure that everyone can get it.  Rules and structure are needed to run a sporting event, an economy or a country.  The key is to make the rules as few as practicable, easy to understand, and applicable to everyone equally.  The rules of our economy started out simple:  Don't misrepresent your product or service, ie; don't defraud people.  Don't dump poison into our environment.  Run your business honestly, do your best, and the market will decide how successful you become.  Pretty simple, and applicable to all.

Now, 'poison' is being defined as carbon dioxide, the same thing we exhale, and the same thing plants need to live.  The government is now literally trying to regulate every breath we take.  Well-connected corporations with lots of lawyers might be able to cope with that; smaller firms can't.  Thus, the Big Boys are protected from any real competition.

 Fraud is perfectly acceptable as long as you're on Big Government's buddy list.  In fact, if you're really good at 'paying off the Ref,' you don't have to pay a penny in taxes even as you outsource jobs to Asia in the midst of one of the most horrific employment markets in American history.  When you can travel all over the world, negotiating deals with corporations and governments with the POTUS at your side...let's just say that you have a certain advantage not enjoyed by your competitors.

When you go bankrupt due to that fact that you make products no one wants to buy, you're supposed to go out of business as other, more competent firms take your place.  But that isn't being allowed when you're supposedly "too big to fail."  (BTW, check that outsourcing list again.  Look who else is on it.)  So GM continues to stumble along making vehicles no one wants, while up-and-coming manufacturers--who could have jumped into the vacuum of a failed GM--are relegated to niche markets.

This, my friends, is 'crony capitalism.'  It's when the Ref stops enforcing the rules fairly, and begins deciding who will win and who will lose.  Whether guided by a flat-Earth enviromaniac ideology, the ravings of a bunch of discredited fools, or simply a bit of kickback--this is why America's in such a mess.  This is what we on the Right despise just as much--if not more so--as those on the Left.

The Leftists are always going on about what they perceive as 'fair.'  How about we have one set of simple rules and apply them across the board to everyone, regardless of who they know, how much money they have or how cool they are?  How about we let people--and corporations--suffer the natural consequences of their own incorrect choices?  How about we stop trying to control everything and let people live their own lives, for good or ill?  You know--freedom.

That's about as 'fair' as life's ever going to get.  And that's what we stand for.