Via Instapundit, this post over at the Corner points out something I've noted in my mind for a while: those who advocate greater government involvement in industries such as finance and health care speak as if these are ideas which need to be tried. In fact, they've been tried for a long time in many diverse places. So we have lots of experimental evidence to point to.
One example: the idea that greater regulation would have prevented our current crisis. Yet the source of the crisis -- mortgages -- is one of the most heavily regulated parts of finance. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been attempting to control prices for a long time. And yet the industry imploded. (One might consider the previous sentence without the "yet" and reconsider the causality.)
Many countries around the world have much more regulation, and were not spared. It's like saying that a crime involving an illegal gun is the result of lax gun laws. Hint: the gun was already illegal, as was the assault, and yet the tragedy happened. Making it "more illegal" makes us feel better but elides the cause.
The president has said that "solving" our health care "problem" is necessary for solving our economic problems. Most of the world has socialized medicine. So if countries with socialized medicine are in the same economic straits as we, and perhaps worse, how does it follow that it's a cure?
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