TOP TEN MISTEAKS GOVERNMENT MAKES

Government is not infallible. In fact, it is more fallible than almost anything else. That's why I misspelled "mistake."

Here are the top ten government mistakes:

  1. The belief that government can do a better job than private industry.
  2. The Plurality Election System elects oddballs into office.
  3. Laymen politicians attempt to do jobs that trained experts should be doing.
  4. High taxes destroy the economy by destroying businesses and sending jobs overseas.
  5. Government officials fear some chemical substances.
  6. Government attempts to control the economy or redistribute income make everything worse.
  7. Schools provide cultural education instead of vocational education.
  8. Bad Science causes wrong policies.
  9. The use of Keynesian Economics as a model of the real economy.
  10. Government treats railroads differently than it treats other transportation forms.

Explanation of each mistake:

  1. The belief that government can do a better job than private industry.

    Government is made up of a diverse collection of people with different backgrounds. Government also has the power to do what it wants without the penalty of bankruptcy if it fails. Therefore, government does not have the efficiency that private industry has. Add to that the fact that elected officials consider themselves to be competent to do jobs that should be done by trained experts, and it is clear why government is so incompetent.

    Government putting itself first hurts everyone else, making everything even worse. Don't trust government to do anything right, because it can't.

  2. The Plurality Election System elects oddballs into office.

    Plurality voting (vote for only one) introduces a bias for the candidate most different than the others, and against candidates with similar platforms. This bias is most evident when more than two candidates or alternatives are in the race, and increases with the number of candidates. It divides the vote among similar candidates to the point where an unknown candidate or a radical nut can win the election.

  3. Laymen politicians attempt to do jobs that trained experts should be doing.

    For some unknown reason, people who are elected to office somehow think that this election somehow endows them with the expertise to do jobs that trained engineers should be doing. This includes controlling traffic control, creating building codes, environmental science, hazard control, engineering, and many other professions that normally require college degrees in special areas of training. Yet, these laymen try to do these jobs, making a terrible mess of them. Yet, people trust them to do these jobs, instead of the trained experts who know what they are doing. It should be a crime for politicians to impersonate experts

  4. High taxes destroy the economy and make people poor.

    Taxes destroy businesses and send jobs overseas, by making it too costly to produce products here. Under the current tax systems, the poor are taxed by Social Security, Medicare, Income, Property, and Sales taxes. Property tax definitely costs the poor who own a house, and those who rent pay property tax in their rent payments. And under the current government-first laws, property tax can take someone's house away if he can't pay. In addition, business taxes almost double product prices, and cause job losses. Business declines twice as fast as the tax rate increases.

  5. Government officials fear some chemical substances.

    There is another problem caused by laymen in government making decisions that trained experts should be making. Often the decisions are made by either laymen politicians, or firemen trained to eliminate hazards, but not in the actual hazards that each substance actually presents. These people want to create a "hazard-free world." This is an impossibility, but they don't know that, because they are not experts in chemistry and biochemistry. These self-appointed "experts" then scare the public into believing that these substances are much more dangerous than they really are.

  6. Government attempts to control the economy or redistribute income make everything worse.

    Wage and price controls always create surpluses and/or shortages that are worse than the problem the controls were enacted to correct. The minimum wage causes a shortage of jobs. A wage ceiling would cause a job surplus. Maximum limits on prices cause shortages of products that cost more to make. The gas lines of the 1970s were caused by price controls, not an "energy crisis." Farm price supports cause surpluses.

    Government attempts to redistribute income to "help the poor" instead tax businesses into bankruptcy, cause jobs to leave the country, and end up causing the poor to lose their jobs. It is impossible to change markets, but government keeps trying and failing.

    Government has no power to control the economy without making a big mess.

  7. Schools provide cultural education instead of vocational education.

    Our public education system stinks, because it is run by unions. They demand jobs and classes according to the abilities of the union members, instead of the classes needed to provide the ability to get jobs. This is because most of the people who aspire to be teachers want to teach obsolete, traditional, or nonproductive subjects.

    Examples of these subjects include geography, history, art, music, dance, theater, sports, poetry, literature, culture, and other subjects that had high demand in the past. But most of these subjects and professions have been made obsolete by the inventions of sound recording, radio, TV, and computers, and professional sports. There are very few jobs left in these fields, because the few people who are hired can provide the services for the entire country.

    The subjects that are needed are not provided well, because the unions have equal-pay clauses. This "equal pay" is not enough to keep the teachers trained in math, science, and technology from taking other higher-paying jobs. Pay must be set according to ability to teach the subjects needed, not equally distributed.

    As things are, liberal arts teachers, who are not qualified to teach math, science, and technology are teaching these courses badly. The fact that these subjects are not taught well explains the number of layman-politicians who think they are qualified to do the jobs of trained experts.

  8. Bad Science causes wrong policies.

    This is yet another problem caused by laymen in government doing jobs that trained experts should be doing. They think that, because they have taken political science courses, that they understand science. The physical sciences use completely different methods, but because these layman politicians are not aware of this, they wrongly apply the methods of political and behavioral sciences to the physical world. In doing so, they obtain the wrong results.

    Examples of the wrong results obtained by the use of the wrong methods include the banning of many substances because they "cause cancer," the attempts to remove salt from diets, many dietary edicts, globbal warming, "proof" that homosexuality is hereditary, and other nonsense that most people believe is the product of real science. And many of the programs designed to prevent destruction of the environment are not based on facts, but on the religious beliefs of environmentalists.

  9. The use of Keynesian Economics as a model of the real economy.

    Keynesian Economics is a model of the economy that liberals use. It is not an accurate model of the economy, because it fails to recognize that the only major source of wealth is work. Thus, it makes such erroneous predictions as:

    All of these things are desirable, which is why liberals like this model. Unfortunately, the predictions it makes do not come true, because there is no work being done, thus no wealth is created by these activities.

  10. Government treats railroads differently than it treats other transportation forms.

    Government provides the roads used by all of the other transportation systems (including airways for aircraft and channels for shipping), but it does not provide the tracks for the railroads. Thus, the railroads are disappearing.

    Instead of the wacky subsidies the government gives railroads now, government should acquire and take care of the tracks, while the railroads should provide the motive power and rolling stock. This would put railroads on an even footing with other forms of transportation. Government should provide the road for each form of transportation, but should never provide the vehicles.

The bare truth is that government can't do good when it tries to do good. It usually causes harm instead.

Stop asking for more from government. You will regret getting what you asked for.

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