The brilliance of Free Market Capitalism.....

[Flabbergasted]

We've all heard the saying "It sounds good on paper."

George Bush has had many such moments over the last few years.

For one example, there is the Iraq war. Think tanks indicated that a campaign of catastrophic strategic strikes would psychologically quell a population. Shock and awe. Worked great.

Another is the collapse of our dollar. In theory free market capitalism and deregulation are supposed to handle the needs of society. Bush has done as little as possible to regulate the economy. In theory, the dollar is supposed to regulate itself and little or nothing is supposed to be done to contain a rising or falling currency. Well this sounds great on paper.

US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said today: "a strong dollar is very much in our nation's interest,' Paulson said, 'our economy, like any other, goes through ups and downs.'

http://www.forbes.com/afxnewslimited/feeds/afx/2007/11/15/afx4345805.html

Well that's pretty obvious dumb-shit. What are you going to do about it. What's that you say? NOTHING?

You see in theory at some point the dollar will rebound. In addition countries such as China and regions like the middle east are supposed to maintain the dollar as their reserve currency counter to their own national interest. Something is really wrong here.

Pressure is mounting on the president to do something about the dollar but the issue is almost completely ignored. Somewhere in a think tank someone is saying, "Just say everything is fine and the dollar will rebound."

Now a president with half a brain would say: "You know? Now that our dollar is weak, I'll encourage our manufacturing base and start exporting goods. That way we will get the trade deficit under control and the dollar will eventually rebound."

But this would be government intervention and the economy is supposed to regulate itself through a free market. This is as naive as believing that if you let your house burn down the fire will eventually go out and the house will put itself back together.

Will the next president solve this problem? Who knows? No one is admitting the problem actually exists yet.