Following are headlines from page one in Tennessee’s Johnson City Press yesterday…
FINANCIAL FIX IN WORKS
Fed plan would overhaul regulatory system
Heaven help us!
Now let me state up front that this plan is not law, and may never be. In fact, the plan worried me so much that I called a top-drawer Clemson University economist with my fears. He said perhaps the best part of this whole plan is that most of it will never be passed. Treasury secretary Henry Paulson has a plan, it is true, but that doesn’t mean we’re stuck with the whole thing.
One wonders if this is just another of those election-year plans that pop up every four years as needed. Some of them are proposed, argued over until November, then quietly skulk off into the sunset after the election.
The scariest part of this plan is that it would put the guvmint “in charge of financial market stability.†Holy cow!
The guvmint is in charge of Social Security and Medicare already. Why would we put them in charge of anything else, much less “financial stability?†The guvmint dabbles in the medical market now in a jillion ways. Did you know the guvmint influences the number of doctors who enter the marketplace? Also, did you know that the guvmint limits the building of new hospitals—and even major equipment purchases by existing hospitals? You can’t just go build a hospital because you think it might be a good business. You have to get a guvmint permit, and that is not a rubber-stamp permit. Many are turned down, not for quality reasons, but because the guvmint decides the community does not need another hospital.
Holy cow again. In any other field it is realized that decreasing supply raises price (if you don’t believe it, ask OPEC) and that more competition lowers prices. The guvmint, however, will very politely explain why this is not true in the medical field.
Look around and you can find many examples of how the guvmint interferes in the marketplace in order to provide “financial stability.†As a nation our citizens still pay twice the world price for sugar because the guvmint decided we should. This was back in WWII, but the law still exists and is enforced. Didja ever wonder why most of our major candy manufacturers moved out of the country?
Please save us from any more guvmint protection.
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