The Human Herding Instinct

What are the longer term consequences of a president acting as chief executive officer and chairman of the board of the United States of America? What presidents do introduces new roles for government, then normalizes various approaches to governing.

During the 1980s, the Reagan Administration was the first to tamper with the stock market with the creation of the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets. The Plunge Protection Team began finding new and improved ways to push the stock market up when natural forces otherwise would have caused it to go down. The stock market crash of 1987 called for government intervention. Later in the Reagan Administration massive intervention by way of supply side Keynesian stimulus was applied to the economy. All of this was done after the image of Reagan as a conservative was cemented in the minds of Americans. Of course he was nothing of the kind. The masses got their sensibilities validated and the politically powerful got their government for profit initiative carried out.

Ronald Reagan came and went. However, government intervention in the financial markets has grown and grown to where its now more of an influence than organic market forces. Keynesian economic stimulus was so profitable to all who benefited directly from the government spending that lobbying for more profit generating stimulus became the huge lobbying activity it is today.

Since the 1980s there has not been one year where no lobbyist inspired stimulus has not been used. Every president since Ronald Reagan has acted as stimulator and chief.

What is the purpose of stimulus? Stimulus is a wealth creating system that has the by product of concentrating the nations wealth and income among the few who are politically powerful enough to dictate policy to the president and congress. The end result of forever stimulus is similar to what steroids do to athletes. A track star on steroids wins races. A baseball player on steroids hits more home runs. A linebacker makes harder hits. The price is damage to the body that remains long after the athletic career is over. Over time stimulus destroys an economy. Since politics is about getting and getting more right now, future damage to the economy is never a consideration.

So what are the consequences of having a president act as CEO of the United States of America? So far so good you say? Have you ever heard of the free market concept? Where in the free market system is there a place for a president to act as salesman and negotiator of the country’s business interests? In a fascist style economy that is a proper role for a president to assume. Should we return to a mercantile system, president acting as CEO of the nation is more than called for.

Suppose, Donald Trump acting as CEO of the country has positive results for six months, a year or even for his entire tenure as president? The practice will have been initialized and normalized. How good of a CEO will the next president be?

If you occupy any position on the national food chain ladder below the top 20%, the odds of you benefiting from a president’s deal making skills are close to zero. You get your sensibilities validated while the very few at the top of the national food chain get solid financial gains from the business deals a president makes.

Presently you are being manipulated into “the inflation is good and necessary” mentality so that the burden of the federal debt created by 40+ years of central economic planning is placed directly on your back by way of the newly inspired tariffs.
The truth is a hard sell. Fantasy Free Economics gains readers one at a time. Major search engines simply do not list blogs which disagree with their political agenda. As long as folks share the link to this blog and others speaking out against the grain, the truth will at least trickle into the public consciousness.