Academics and Gov’t Don’t want You To Know

Economics is far simpler than most in academics or government would have you believe. To make accurate predictions all you really need is an honest appreciation of the self-interest that is at the heart of free market transactions and an ability to understand how regulations that attempt to “correct” these realities don’t work. This is certainly the case with the completely predictable slow-motion train wrecks that are the signature U.S. domestic policy experiments of the last eight years: Obamacare and Federal Reserve stimulus. From the start, I issued countless commentaries on why both would fail spectacularly. The jury has started to come back on Obamacare, and the results are a disaster. And while the verdict on the Fed’s policies has yet to arrive in similarly stark terms, I believe that its failure is just as certain.

As I explained in my July 30, 2012, commentary “Justice Roberts is Right: The Plan Won’t Work,” the central flaw (among many others) in Obamacare is that it incentivizes younger, healthier people to drop out of insurance coverage while encouraging older, sicker people to sign up. The result would be a pool of insurance participants that would guarantee losses for those providing coverage. That’s exactly what we are seeing.

It is somewhat heartening that there is a greater recognition now of the inherent flaws in Obamacare. Hopefully, such realizations will soon be widely raised about our current stimulus experiments, and that these insights will arrive in time to change course. However, confidence should be extremely low on that front.

To me, the fate of the Fed’s stimulus policy is as clear as that of President Obama’s failed experiment in healthcare. It’s a disaster hiding in plain sight.  The stimulus itself has so crippled the U.S. economy that it can now barely survive without it.   As it limps along the crutch must grow ever larger, as the support it provides weakens the economy to the point where it becomes too small to provide adequate support.  But rather than acknowledging that the Fed’s policies have failed (an admission that any honest proponent of Obamacare should make), the proponents of stimulus are doubling down.

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