Control freaks want to run your life! Here's our show:
RISK CORRIDORS: I embarrass myself (again) by dressing up as Uncle Sam and also as FatCat, health insurance company boss.
Since it would cost insurance companies too much money to comply with all the new Obamacare standards, Uncle Sam promised to bail them out if they lost money. But shhh! Don't call them ‘bailouts' -those are unpopular! Instead, politicians use the term "risk corridors."
THE NANNY STATE: Before I wised up to the idea of individual liberty, Itoo thought regulators should protect people from their own behavior. But-as a consumer reporter-I had no real power. Government does. And sadly government is filled with people just as ignorant and arrogant as I was... and they do use force.
"IT TAKES A LONG TIME TO CONTROL THE PEOPLE:" Rep. John Dingell once said "it takes a long time ...to put the legislation together to control people"
SPORTS BETTING: Millions of us bet on sports. Governor Chris Christie signed a bill that partially legalizes sports betting in New Jersey, but most politicians only want to legalize betting in casinos and other "state controlled" facilities. And even that goes too far for the control freaks. Shouldn't free people be allowed to do what they want with their own money?
MY TAKE: People on the left and right believe government should promote good things... and discourage bad things. But that is just a license for the control-freaks to stick their noses into everything we do. As Frederick Hayek said in "The Fatal Conceit", "The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."
