Big government is not the answer to our problems. Big government is just another form of elitism, which is the problem that got us in to this mess in the first place. Whether it's all-powerful federal officials, or masters-of-the-universe uber-capitalists, the effect is the same: central control of the economy by a very few. Command and control economies don't work.

The problem we face is that the our markets really aren't free. This isn't because they are over-regulated - just the opposite. We need additional oversight not because we want to quash capitalism, but because efficient capitalism depends on it. That's the argument no-one seems to be making. It's either Ayn Rand redux laissez faire capitalism, or direct democracy bureaucratic plutocracy. As with so many things, the answer is in the middle.

Capitalism can't work when 90% of the population is living hand-to-mouth. Each dollar is a vote, and the elections are being stolen by a few, in their own favor. We need universal economic suffrage. No, I'm not talking about a perfectly level economic playing field, but yes, I am indeed talking about that bugaboo that everyone (tellingly) wants to avoid: wealth redistribution.

Wealth is redistributed all the time, under any system, including our present one. Why is the term so loaded? Why does it touch a nerve? Because it gets at the truth of the matter. Regulations need to be designed to insure that wealth is properly allocated among a nation's citizens. Current regulations ensure that only a very very small percentage of our population has any real power. That is not only morally wrong, but economically indefensible. Regulations are not the problem, the nature of our regulations are the problem. A flat earth is not desirable, but neither is a distribution curve with such an extreme exponential spike. The truth, as usual, is somewhere in the middle.

With so many powerful interests, on both sides of the aisle, arrayed against the idea of subverting their own power and influence (in the form of capital) in favor of improving the socio-economic balance, I have little faith anything substantive will be done. Our best hope, I believe, is that the economy sinks so low that we reach an inflection point where the old politics no longer has any credibility. My fear is that we'll continue to stagger along in our current crippled condition for a very long time, never hitting a bottom hard enough to trigger a true crisis of conscience.

Speaking of stopping the economy, I'm a little worried about the home buyer tax credit I've been hearing about. The problem is that hearing about it sets up deflationary expectations. That means many people who have been considering a home purchase will wait a few months - it might be worth $15,000. Watch home sales plummet until someone says something definitive about this tax credit.

Of course, this will do nothing to buoy prices. Considering that plummeting home prices are what precipitated this mess in the first place [1], that can't be good for the economy. (Somehow, though, I can't help feeling that bringing home prices in line with reality can't be all bad.)

[1] Actually, gross wealth disparity and indiscriminate lending came first, but declining home prices were the first manifest consequence.

Over ten years ago, the pharmaceutical industry had worldwide sales totalling nearly three hundred trillion dollars. That's right; in one year: $300,000,000,000,000. Ten years ago. They've got one of the best gigs in town: manufacture pills which cost pennies to develop and manufacture for exorbitant fees, subsidized by a health care industry eager to hide and obscure the cost of your medicine (because they are getting rich too). You want to know why health care costs are out of control: big pharma. Watch them play Washington for fools over the next year or two. Try to find a Representative or Senator without drug money in their pocket.

What does this have to do with Bill and Melinda? Their foundation is a huge investor in this industry. What threatens this industry more than anything? The notion that society will cease to honor their imaginary property rights over chemical processes. (Not coincidentally the same kind of problem faced by Microsoft.) There was a day when the world was ready to start manufacturing generic drugs to combat the scourge of disease plaguing Africa. No more. The pharmaceutical IP regime has been fully globalized, thanks in no small part to Bill and Melinda.

This is why Bill's philanthropy is a sham. It is based on the false premise that poor big pharma (what comes after trillions anyway?) cannot function without government protection of their imaginary property rights. Bill's munificence exists to extend IP law to the third world, thereby preventing millions of sick people from receiving the drugs they need at cost. There has been no greater harm done to our economy than by society's recent embrace of absurdly over protective intellectual property regulations. We need to turn back the clock on the regime of the intellectual property barons. They have been robbing us long enough.

Hmm, I forgot Salon's letters doesn't allow href links. Here's the link.

http://tinyurl.com/7b47ab

BTW, note how much Africa contributed to Pharma's profits in 1997. Sure would be a shame to let a whole continent off the hook, wouldn't it?