Elizabeth Warren’s Plan to Bamboozle American Voters

The run-up to the presidential primaries offers a funhouse reflection of American life.  Presidential hopefuls, hacks, and has-beens turn to focus groups to discover what they think the American electorate wants.  Then they distill it down to hollow bumper stickers.  After that, they pump their fists and reflect it back with mindless repetition.

Change We Can Believe In.  Feel the Bern.  Make America Great Again.  Sí Se Puede.  Fighting for Us.  Compassionate Conservatism.  A Stronger America.  Ross for Boss.  Morning in America.  Not Just Peanuts.  Nixon’s the One.  Dean Scream.  And much, much, more…

The mantras are both idiotic and comical.  They provide political lemmings with something to believe in.  They also provide incisive observers with a unique prism into the menaces of tomorrow.

For example, presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren’s slogan is: “Warren Has a Plan for That.”  An official t-shirt, adorned with this slogan, will set you back just $30 bucks.  And you can pick up a slogan emblazoned tote bag for $35.  What a bargain!

To any onlooker with their wits about them this mantra is utterly absurd.  But to Warren, it’s as serious as a heart attack.  She does, indeed, have a plan for everything – even if it means instant death.  In fact, her official website includes the following sales copy:

“Child care unaffordable?  Big corporations and billionaires not paying their fair share?  Want more economic and political power in the hands of the people?  Don’t worry, Warren has a plan for that.”

Pulling the Patriotism Card

Warren, if you recall, owes her career to scheming and conniving.  She pulled the race card for nearly three decades…claiming to be Native American even though her ancestral connection is slim to none.  In doing so, she was rewarded for helping the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University embellish their diversity metrics.

Now Warren’s at it again.  This time her scheme is to bamboozle the American voter by pulling the patriotism card.  Remember, in America today, it’s forbidden to be against any and all things patriotism.  You’re either for it, or you’re un-American.

This week, while most of us were busy going balls to the wall, Warren burped out her plan to save the economy from itself.  It’s called Economic Patriotism.  And it involves extreme government intervention into all aspects of economic life…with the intent of, somehow, making the American worker rich.

Warren’s shameless grab for votes – what she calls Economic Patriotism – includes:

Dollar debasement to boost U.S. exports.  The creation of a new government agency to cook up four-year jobs plans like McDonald’s Big Macs.  A 10X increase to annual investments in apprenticeship programs.  And, among other things, $2 trillion over 10 years to eradicate climate change.

Warren, like many en vogue American socialists, wants to extract tribute from producers so she can dole it back out from Washington to her liking.  She doesn’t care that her plan hasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of delivering economic nirvana for the American worker.  She’s counting on American voters to buy the sizzle…

Elizabeth Warren’s Plan to Bamboozle American Voters

For anyone who’s bothered to consider it, if but just for a moment, it’s readily apparent that the economy’s a complex living organism.  It evolves.  It changes.  And it often moves in ways that are only obvious in hindsight.

One relationship at one moment can be completely different at another moment.  Prices rise.  Prices fall.  All the while, supply and demand are incessantly adjusting and readjusting to meet the conditions of the market.  These continuous interactions provide a natural and efficient response to supply shortages and gluts.

Centrally planned economies, as advocated by Warren, are inclined to frequent, intensive and chronic shortages.  Bureaucrats, armed with spiral bound planning reports and pie graphs, are incapable of fixing the proper prices for gumballs and gasoline by diktat.  There’s simply too much going on and too many moving parts for them to consider.

What’s more, these enlightened ones, filled with visions of utopia, are blinded to their own conceit.  They believe they know what’s best – whether that involves ending climate change or ending poverty.  And their efforts to redeploy resources in ways that the decisions and interactions of billions of people don’t demand, invariably cause things to go haywire.

Instead of less poverty, they get more poverty.  Instead of real jobs, they get fake jobs.  Instead of greater fairness, they get greater corruption.  Instead of new innovation and new wealth, they get cronyism and stagnation.  Instead of more freedom, they get more coercion.

Over time, centrally planned economies rot from the inside out until they cease to function all together.  This was effectively proven by the experiences of the centrally planned economies of the old communist Eastern Bloc countries during the second half of the 20th century.  Still, some people never learn.

Do ice cubes stem the flow of volcanic lava?  Does adhesive tape control diarrhea?  Does a sports car make a middle-aged man younger?  Does central planning uplift slackers and shirkers?

Warren may have a plan for that – and everything else.  But it’s not a plan anyone should want.  It has nothing to do with sound economics.  And it has nothing to do with patriotism.

But, alas, if Warren gets her way, it’s just the sort of plan the American voter will fall for come 2020.

Sincerely,

MN Gordon
for Economic Prism

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