Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Do You Believe It?

One theory, common in America, England, Greece, and elsewhere, is that our governments are just incredibly stupid. They don't know what they are doing. Every farmer and schoolteacher and construction worker in the country knows better, but Washington (or Downing Street, or Athens) just doesn't GET IT.

I don't believe that. Do you?

I think they know exactly what they are doing. We're the ones who don't, necessarily.

5 comments:

margaret said...

I agree that they probably know what they're doing but I don't believe they're on our side which is why it looks as if they don't.

Anastasia Theodoridis said...

Exactly.

123 said...

Societies are incredibly complex things and quite diverse in their interests at the individual and local levels. What might be best for the country as a whole will be detrimental to certain corners of that country. Add to that differences of opinion over what is in fact good for the country (or even moral), what is legal, what is affordable, what is possible, etc. and you will generally see pretty strong disagreement about what governments do.

It's also easy to be an armchair quarterback. People's tunes change once they are in power and responsible for decisionmaking, coalition-building, budgeting, taxing, strategy, politicking, etc.

I tend to think local government is better, but only because it can tailor solutions to local problems and address issues that may be important locally but not nationally. At the same time, no one is an island and local control is not a panacea. It's also harder to demonize a neighbor while it's quite easy to demonize 'them' way off in London or Washington.

DebD said...

you said "They know exactly what they are doing." My husband would heartily agree with that statement. He's always reminding me "The ones we need to be watching are the bankers...they're the ones running the country." Why doesn't someone notice how many top Obama and Bush appointees are former Goldman Sach's employees?

This is one of the big things that makes the internet good (and blogs especially), because they aren't owned by the banks and big corporations.

Anam Cara said...

I disagree. I think that many times those in power MEAN well, but in reality have no idea what the consequences of some of their actions will be. So looking at it that way, they have no idea what they are doing.

When the banks were encourage to do those sub-prime loans, the intent was to help the American dream of home ownership. The result was a crash that resulted in many losing their homes.

They wanted something good, but the result was disasterous. They had no idea what they were doing. And I believe that is from a lack of wise advisors.

Those who fail to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.