Deregulation as Culprit

I was listening on the car radio a fellow rant on about how deregulation got us into this economic mess.  It's too bad people say somethings, too bad they are unable or unwilling to make important distinctions.

There was no deregulation of anything at any time.  There was a change of regulations, that changed who would be the winners and who would be the losers.

Our present regulations are arranged so the winners are the bankers and the warmongers.  If you are a saver (and a pension is savings), own property or take a paycheck, you are sunk.  Changing regulations to reverse that would work, but it would not make anything better.

Even I speak of "deregulation" of the airlines, beer, telecom and trucking of the 1980s.  There too it was not really deregulation, as in all regulations off, it was a deregulation lite.  There were still plenty of regulations.  As long as there are governments, there will be people making regulations.

But in the cases of the deregulations, pushed by Jimmy Carter (who also gutted the CIA, contributing to a decade of peace and prosperity), of the cited industries, there was not a shift in emphasis but a true reduction.  With just deregulation lite, and just telecom, we had such a boom in the economy as creative force, like Jobs at Apple, explored all the possibilities of lowering cost and widening access to information and communications.  No one saw the internet coming when they executed deregulation lite of telephones.

The regulations now favor the warfare state.  To re-regulate would then favor the welfare state.  The Tea Party has been co-opted to be pro-war, and the Occupy Wall Street is co-opted to be pro-welfare.  A pox on both houses!

Deregulate something, anything, and even just deregulate lite, but do so in order that an economy may begin to reanimate.

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