> The central problem is the role of government.
>
> Government economists seem to believe that the government has some
> God-like role to oversee the economy and keep out of the way.
>
> What they fail to realize is that the government is simply a market
> force created by the people. Its primary function is to intervene on
> behalf of the individuals who elect it. The Government represents
> individuals, not corporations.
>
> The approach of the Government standing back and letting the rest of
> the market look after itself is not good economics, its a market
> failure of the first order!
Thatcher & Reagan have a lot to answer for. They pioneered the "business
of government is the business of getting out of government" approach.
Despite the fact that Reagan caused the biggest foreign debt in US
history & threw millions on the scrap heap (the US Govt doesn't even
attempt to count their homeless unemployed) & similar things happened in
the UK, the Oz Govt is now, slavishly following the Economic Rationalist
agenda. I really wonder why. There's a total lack of empiricism in this
approach.
If I was a conspiracy theorist I would speculate that this is all a
sinister plot by the mega-multinationals to curtail or eliminate the
power of government.
Paul