Are Politicians a Different Species?

I am beginning to think that politicians are an entirely different species than the average American. There is some genetic misprint in their DNA, something that causes them to create chaos out of order. Something beyond the natural order (or disorder).

Simplified, the second law of thermodynamics is that “Entropy Increases.” Nothing takes place with 100% efficiency, causing disorder in the universe to increase. When a china cup falls to the floor, it breaks into disordered pieces. Disordered pieces do not drop to the floor and emerge as a whole cup. Increasing disorder is natural and normal.

In Congress, we’ve got hundreds of men and women bouncing around like excited molecules inside a glass of water, all waiting to spill out and create CHAOS. They are not satisfied by making simple choices and creating simple solutions to problems we face. It’s like they have some genetic predisposition for making things so convoluted that Einstein would be no match.

Right now, our nation is facing a financial crisis. The availability of credit has vanished, just like it did before the Great Depression. If something isn’t done immediately, and I mean now, we will be facing much the same problem. Just today, Washington Mutual went into receivership, a $300 billion behemoth bank. It had been teetering, waiting for the “bailout” to occur. But it took longer than it should have for Congress to act, so the plug was pulled. This will be happening daily until something is done.

I know that Congress does not always attract our best and brightest. Some might even say that they lack the required alphas to lead the pack. But they are people who (usually) care about their constituents. They just have this genetic defect (maybe it is just that this gene is more dominant) that causes them to make trapezoids and mazes out of circles.

I am not normally a bail-out kind of guy. If you screw up, you pay the consequences, learn from your mistakes and do it better next time. This time it is different. The level of fraud and greed has taken everyone by surprise. If we had endured just fraud or just greed, the nation would have been okay. But when the greed is based upon fraud (like Fannie Mae dramatically relaxing its standards without telling anyone and cooking its books for stock bonuses and option conversions), and excessive leverage is used, we have a calamity in waiting.

The proposed government bailout was not the Fed’s (or the administration’s) first choice. It is a last-ditch effort to put on a tourniquet before death occurs. Unfortunately, its passage is put into the hands of a breed of human that can do nothing but complicate things. Our leaders are manipulating the agreement to score political points and point fingers.

I assure you, for most members of Congress, actually understanding this bailout plan would be like understanding Chinese the first time you look at it. It cannot be done by the normal human brain, let alone one of a politician. So, Congress retreats to a place where it is comfortable, making everything so complicated that no one understands it.

Restricting golden parachutes was a good addition to this plan. But adding condition after condition, and setting limits upon when cash can be made available, is like telling a Triage Nurse that a patient cannot have a new IV bag, or a blood transfusion until a week has passed. The patient needs it now. The doctor agrees. But the kitchen workers have decided that it isn’t fair for someone to get care that fast and efficiently.

What does a kitchen worker know about trauma? What does a member of Congress know about finance? I would say that they are relatively equivalent. Congress needs to let experts do their jobs, and go complicate something else, like health care. (Just joking, but that is next.)

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