Are Our Best Days Behind Us?

Americans are wrestling with this seminal question that doesn’t have a satisfactory answer. We are so often divided into an infinite number of pots, keeping us in opposition to one another:

1. For many, their observations and the constant drumbeat of bad news portends a bad end.
2. Still, others don’t think ahead more than a day or two at a time and don’t concern themselves with what to them are unnecessary and unknowable questions.
3. Finally, some know our history and are still willing to meet the challenge despite the long odds.

The continued health, safety, guaranteed freedoms we’ve come to expect, and economic security we enjoyed up to 2007 all have a sell-by date; Obama changed everything just like he told you he would. The other day, I talked to a friend about this administration’s thought processes, which make little sense from our perspective as businessmen and believers in rational thought over chaos. The one thing almost all will agree on is the terrible inconsistencies we observe in how government governs. “What are they thinking?” frequently comes to mind, not just in my conversations but at the national level as well, by Republicans and Democrats, who, in most cases, are unhappy and confused by the direction our country is taking.

 

National Discontent – Trump Leads on Border & Economy:-

61% of all Americans say we are on the wrong track, with both parties agreeing in the majority. Trump has a commanding lead on the two top issues: the border and the economy. Yet, with these startlingly high numbers, the election is still very close, a phenomenon we can’t explain rationally. We just had the first and likely the last debate, and which side you are on colored how you viewed the entire debate. To better understand what was on display, think of these two realities.

1.  People gravitate to the center of gravity that fits their circumstances most closely and where they live in our social stratum.
2.  Government is reactive and therefore doles out incentives (or disincentives) to maintain loyalty to this or that group to maximize its power.

This has led me to a thesis that explains how the government thinks on any given subject, summed up by a single question:

“What Would the Government Do?

Reactive actions, instead of more desirable systematic and logical thought processes that review similar past actions and the consequences of such actions, are rarely undertaken. Failures of execution built on one or more false premises frequently lead to behavior and outcomes that are the opposite of what is intended. The issue in the majority of cases is that political expediency is paramount. The government has unlimited access to the consequences of previous laws, rules, and interpretations that policymakers should be aware of before seemingly always coming to the same failed judgments. This perfectly explains why government doesn’t average up making better laws over time, as you would expect; besides politics, what drives them to replicate the worst and not the best we can do?

Because the government believes it can suspend natural and manmade laws, such as the laws of physics and economics, and, most importantly, the laws of human behavior. Let’s take that last one and expose the greatest failing of government…changing human behavior. For instance, on economic issues, whenever the government sees a problem, instead of allowing the laws of supply and demand to fix it, they substitute their “superior” judgment by creating “incentives” to fix a perceived issue with accessibility and access. Or, they create “disincentives” if they believe someone or some group is getting an unearned or disproportionate benefit. We’ve seen this play out in failed attempts costing hundreds of billions of dollars to force us to take COVID shots we are afraid of and the oversupply of EV vehicles that we won’t purchase, to name a couple.

The reality of subsidies and disincentives is that they substitute a politician’s judgment in favor of Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand theory, which underlies successful Capitalism. In a nutshell, Adam Smith said:

Capitalism creates incentives through the free markets for self-interested people to act unintentionally in the public interest. 

 

A Recipe for Policy Failures:-

The government, in its supposed superior position in knowledge and power, believes a series of untruths that they codify into law and practice and then wonder what went wrong:

1. The government misunderstands the nature of subsidies. It is a truism that you get more of whatever you subsidize, and what you disincentivize, you get less. With this knowledge, we can understand why fewer people seek work and are less loyal than past generations. We also see more people leave the workforce for good because they can more easily claim disability and a myriad of benefits available exclusively for the unemployed.
2. The government believes it can create jobs through legislation; it can’t. Only private industries can create jobs, and the only way they can do that is through the achievement of profit. Profit is a dirty word to the government. It is suspect and competes with the government’s voracious appetite for more and more money from all of us. The government believes your money is theirs!
3. The government competes with us. Accept the premise for a moment that the government is a black hole that ultimately takes resources from the people, with the likelihood that they will be destroyed through waste and inefficiency or flat-out freeloading. In that instance, the two have a prima facia hostile relationship.

We live in a complex world with too many opportunities to lose focus and get off track. If we are to see better days ahead, we must figure out how to unite ourselves using truth, history, and logic as our guide. Today, our country is divided into fiefdoms of special interests that insist you adopt their particular worldview. This won’t work if we are to move forward in unity and success.

Our old ‘Best Days’ were not an accident. They were the culmination of generations of people practicing self-reliance, hard work, and a shared moral code centered around family and religion. Today’s nihilistic and hedonistic approach to living is a literal dead end.

God Bless America.

Allan J. Feifer—Patriot

Author, Businessman, Thinker, and Strategist. Read more about Allan, his background, and his ideas to create a better tomorrow at www.1plus1equals2.com