Augmented Post

Sometimes I have more to say. From a previous post:

The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money. - Alexis de Tocqueville


We'll see how much bribery is required for his prediction to come true.


When you do a wrong, you can either fess up to your fault and take your lumps or you can try to fix the wrong. Congress has a third method - pretend you didn't do wrong; blame someone else; go about fixing the wrong by doing more wrong.


It is ironic that the most regulated part of our economy - the banking and financial industry - is in danger of collapse yet the government (which does the regulating) is in the process of "fixing" the problem by doing more regulating. The most discouraging aspect is that no one seems to be questioning the supposition that "something" must be done. Why? Why not take our lumps and learn from the error? Because most of Congress would be out of a job, that's why.


How did Congress manage to get the bulk of the people to go along with their obviously faulty logic? Bribery - with the people's own money - even money which does not yet exist. "We must create more jobs" and pay for them with your own money. Government jobs do not create more wealth. They will pay for these new jobs by "creating" more money; created money gets paid back by creating inflation - which the productive and non-productive people pay for dearly. But the bribe is working. Congress has not only discovered the bribe but have perfected it. How long will our Republic endure?