The Takers Eat the Makers

George Handerly’s comments on sovereign debt may be directed at Europe, but apply equally well to the United States:

Sovereign debt and the Euro. This chaos of the global economy is not caused by its participants’ inability to offer goods in a quality and for a price for which there is a demand. That (private) part of the economy that produces and consumes is in good shape. The tumor is located in the political direction of the economy. The crisis is one of confidence. No wonder. The Western pillars of the world economy have governments that are in debt because their clientism forces them to misspend the community’s funds. These indebted governments are run by leaders who, being blinded by their “eurocratic” doctrine, extend loans to broken systems. These national economies have no chance to climb back up on the greased flagpole on which they have slid down.

I would rather think it should be called political venality rather than clientism, but the point is clear. Decades of vote-buying by way of pet projects dressed up as social experimentation and intervention lead finally to the state destroying the private affairs of the governed and their ability to function, employ, and build.

Those who would impose just one more eenie-weeny unproductive burden on us don’t get it. The good that they see in the world as a gift they want to give themselves and others isn’t made by them.

This is said as I find myself dealing with a LEED consultant who know less about that unproductive burden than I do, but still feels compelled to “get something else out of the owner” for what he thinks to be the sake of the planet. Knowing this, I doubt this owner will ever build again.