Behind Blue Eyes

Vice President Joe Biden has asked protesters to “give governments a chance” to resolve the economy. Hmm. You see from where I am sitting I can’t help thinking of President Reagan’s famous line: “government is the problem”. How can the problem also be the solution?

I won’t be live blogging the next few days’ worth of political posturing [I am braced for a busy week, one man's trash, etc.] so here is a quick yardstick by which I will measure the “success” of the G20 conference.

Do the governments admit that private enterprise and innovation are the drivers of productivity and therefore economic growth and not bureaucrats and time-servers? Do the governments commit to getting their lardy inefficient butts out of the way of entrepreneurs, innovators and risk-takers so they can get on with the business of making money and improving the nation’s economic health? Do the governments agree that racking up ever more debt is not the way to resolve the long-term economic issues facing us? Do the governments agree that printing money does not increase the overall amount of wealth in the economy?

The protesters and the Brown-Obama axis of socialism agree that it was the banks wot broke the economy. This is superficially true, but who presided over the banking system? Who spent the nation’s money on plasma tellies and special brew when it should have been building roads and railways or better yet left in people’s pockets to invest how they choose?

The last thing we need is more government, more regulation, more taxation (even if it is deferred). The state must cut itself down to its core functions, its “enabling” functions as David Miliband once put it. Anything else is just hot air: stifling and unhelpful.

UPDATE: oh, and you should read this. And this, although neither is directly related to my post. Is the see-saw tipping?