I rarely share any elements of my political views here. I may talk about political figures on both sides that I believe are harming our economy, but that’s as far as I want to go. So I’ll just make a blanket statement - our country is moving rapidly towards socialism where supposed believers of free market capitalism have a never ending demand to rely on politicians or the Fed to orchestrate the economy. The alternative to that is to believe in the market participants, the employers, the employees, the producers, and the consumers but that seems to be a fading concept called capitalism.

And when something goes wrong, it is increasingly being viewed as a failure of the government to make sure it went right in the first place. And that more government intervention or different government intervention is seen as a solution to the previously ineffective government intervention. It is naive to believe in the capitalism and political environments I want to exist. Note that I said “environments” as a plural. Politics being politics. Economics being economics. Instead, we have one environment of “political economics” where not only do the politicians who crave the power to dictate what happens in life seem to want political economics, but worse yet is the increasing majority of citizens who want the government to dictate what happens in life.

There are many causes of this move towards socialism but the strangest(most ironic) of all comes from the corporations and lobbyists that have infected our political environment. They are “capitalists” who need the government to give them an edge in capitalism. That isn’t capitalism in my book, but since “everyone is doing it” I guess it would be unrealistic to expect anyone not to do it. Just consider the NAHB’s decisions to stop buying political influence because they have not gotten enough government help to solve the mortgage/home price problem. If it wasn’t so pathetic, it would be hysterically funny.

When you think of politicians today, how much of that is based upon the activities in business or markets? The Farm bill. The Energy bill. Subsidies. Fed intervention. Fiscal stimulus plans. Protectionism. It’s all political economics. Sadly, with only a few exceptions, we don’t typically elect politicians for their business acumen or experience with markets or trade. Instead we mostly elect lawyers. 24 of the 43 US Presidents were lawyers (there’s a 50/50 chance the next one will have a law degree.) Historically, about 45% of Congress have law degrees or were lawyers. I have great respect for lawyers - as it relates to the practice of law. I do not have great respect for lawyers - as it relates to the practice of business and markets. The idea that we want the government to influence so much commercial activity is sad and the idea that we want lawyers to do this work is devastatingly bad.

Our economy is a mess.  Our political system is a mess.  Political economics is a mess.