CENTRAL VIEW for Monday, September 24, 2012

Big government: Who gets the cookies?

Lucy and Ethyl were excited. The scheme between the White House, Ethyl’s Treasury Department, and Lucy’s Federal Reserve Bank to pump up the stock market by printing billions of dollars of Treasury Bonds and selling them at auction to wealthy investors and even to the Red Chinese was working. The Dow Jones industrial average was up 13 points. It closed above 13,600 for the first time since December 10, 2007.

But major investment advisers were saying more government borrowing only created an illusion. They said the economy was like a battered battlefield filled with the mournful mutter of high unemployment and snail-like growth. According to the Labor Department, 26 states just reported higher unemployment. The World Trade Organization cut back its estimates for any growth in the global economy. But as long as the illusion lasted to the November elections, Lucy and Ethyl had done their jobs.

So, Lucy and Ethyl left Washington for New York and went back to making chocolate-chip cookies. If they could reduce their cost-of-production, they hoped to stop losing money on each cookie they sold. But, finally realizing that increasing their sales volume only increased their losses, they appealed to the White House to fix their failing cookie business.

The White House, grateful for their illusory pump up of the stock market, responded with a new economic plan it called: Redistribution. In truth, the basic idea was old. It dated back to the 1875 when Karl Marx wrote: “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.” Accordingly, the White House ordered Lucy and Ethyl, who had the ability to make cookies, to give their cookies to everyone who needed a cookie.

Moreover, the producers of butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla, flour, baking soda, salt, chocolate chips, and walnuts were ordered to provide their wares to Lucy and Ethyl for free. Joyfully, Lucy and Ethyl turned out tons of cookies with no worries about losing money. But their joy was short-lived. The producers, unable to make any money, stopped producing.

Soon, there were no ingredients such as: butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla, flour, baking soda, salt, chocolate chips, and walnuts. The result was that no one got any cookies at all. When Lucy and Ethyl complained to the White House, they were told most of their ingredients contributed to obesity, heart disease, and high blood pressure. Moreover, some people are allergic to nuts. Also, corn sugar was in short supply because corn is used to make ethanol for cars. The shortage of animal fodder depressed the swine and cattle markets. Animals were being starved or slaughtered for lack of food.

So, Lucy and Ethyl switched to artificial ingredients which had two unfortunate results: The chemicals gave some people headaches and the cookies tasted awful. Not even free cookies were in demand.

No one had any money for entertainment, so Ricky lost his job at the nightclub. Because of cuts to Medicare, Ethyl and Fred had to buy additional supplemental insurance from AARP which, due to ObamaCare, got a $2.8 billion boost in sales. Lucy and Ricky could not pay their rent to Fred and Ethyl, their landlords. That left Lucy and Ethyl with only one solution: Join a union for government employees and go back to work for the government.

Nationally syndicated columnist, William Hamilton, was educated at the University of Oklahoma, the George Washington University, the U.S Naval War College, the University of Nebraska, and Harvard University.

©2012. William Hamilton.

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Email: william@central-view.com