My response to a comment by the estimable Edward Lambert requires bringing it up front and center...  it is too big for the comment box...

Edward:
We had the right people and a better policy after WWII until the 70´s... even though the policy was still in the forming stage... The welfare programs have come to be much better since then, namely the Earned Income Credit on taxes... We now know this system works much better than the welfare rolls of the 60´s... 
But back then, republicans and democrats worked together to find solutions...
Now every policy gets super watered down ... There is no more compromise, no more reasonable debate...
Yet back in the 50´s and 60´s, there was compromise and constructive debate in the government... even so, the policies back then were not as sophisticated... we have learned much since then, and on the other hand, become less effective...

The overwhelming of social interests by special interests is new... special interests have infiltrated government a lot more since the 60´s...
I think one of the big reasons is people who think like you, that government is wasteful, weak and an interference... 
Now the culmination of that thinking is coming in a wave of austerity measures that will hold down regular people for a long time by holding down inflation...

This will protect the banks that get more powerful everyday...

People who think like you are feeding into the banks alterior motives to create some sort of new feudalism...
The banks over lent all over the world... they would have crashed... but they were bailed out.. they have regrouped and gained back more power than before... while the regular people suffer...
The banks want to control inflation in order to control assets and capital goods... Inflation would benefit the people who are in debt instead of the banks...

The irony of your economic philosophy is that it is meant for the regular people... but is being used to make the big and powerful more big and powerful... by gutting government...

Me:

Edward, 

Your conclusion is ungenerous.  You cast me in with pro-bailout people, when in fact I have a minority argument that the banks should not have been bailed out; yes, "AN" economic system would have failed, but not "THE" economic system.  What is good would have survived.

It is a stretch to say I am responsible for special interests infiltrating govt when I believe there should be no government to infiltrate.  there is an internal contradiction.

Yes the banks have behaved wickedly all over the world.  And it is condign punishment that what the republicans wrought on Chile and Egypt the democrats have wrought on Larry Lunchbucket with his home loan and Suzy Co-ed with her student loan.

Jeffersonians (about 2 in any given congress) voted against student loans, “affordable” home loans, vietnam war, etc, and got called unpatriotic, neanderthal, racist etc.  Jeffersonians are not against peace prosperity and security, they merely have an alternative approach to the goal.

Let me lay out the conflict between you and I.  We agree on the facts. (Banks are installing a new sort of feudalism.) We desire the same results.  (Just distribution of goods and services.)  the only conflict we have is about means.  You believe govt is the proper tool for approximating optimal results.  I believe freedom will outperform govt overtime.

You state we had better policy after WWII until the 70’s.  Cold war, Korea, Vietnam, assassinations, riots, bitter division?  Well, it was pretty exciting times, to be sure.  But what I recall is it was not much different than now, just freer.  You cite the earned income tax credit as policy done right.  My response is why throw people policy leftovers when in freedom they would have all the money the need to buy with their own money what they want?  Why make people grateful to govt for a pittance when they can be proud of their own industry instead?

Of course no system gives anyone everything they want.  Any system has to deal with people the way they are, or it is utopianism.  Free markets assume in USA there are 350 million people looking out for themselves, and constrained by the other 349,999,999 people from getting out of hand.  Belief in govt supposes that about 535 people in DC will meet and hammer out what is best, then turn the details over to several hundred angelic bureaucrats who will always do the right thing. We know from experience in human affairs the former works every time, the latter never works out.

The coming austerity measures will hold down no one who does not wish to be held down.  The coming austerity measures were spotted at least decades ago, when the problems were instituted as policy.  The hamiltonians who dominate USA govt no longer believe in USA, the austerity measures are designed to keep them in power.  It is we Jeffersonians who still believe in USA, but the more the hamiltonians fail, the more people will clamor for oppression.  See 1 Samuel 8-10.

Government failed you, and you blame me and people who think like me.  Free markets have never failed me, so I am never disillusioned.  The people who made government fail are the people who work in government.  Of course.  The people in big biz who control government are the ones who are your enemy, not we who call for removing the advantages of the powers that be.

My economic policy admits no big biz or big govt, because big biz AND big govt always become one, to the detriment of the economic actors.

We already have panarchy in USA.  WAs not always so, at one time no disputes could be settled outside of courts.  We dumped that. No one in USA has to pay taxes, fight wars, submit to govt, because we can always appeal to an alternative.  People who love govt are free to live under it.  People who do not, are free to opt out.  Free market small business is what we call people who have opted out.  I argue we’ll all be happier when move from panarchy to anarchy, but I am not holding my breath.  What scares me is the tea party movement, people far more dangerous than Daschle and Clinton and DeLay and Graham.  Even Ron Paul is nervous about that group.  Because, as you know, the question is not if some leader is any different than Adolf Hitler, but if the american people are any different than the German people.

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