The Free Market       March 29, 2013

            We hear the persistent arguments of think tank toffers and con-artist legislators that the industrial-strength ills we suffer are the corrections of a free market.  But would a free market prevent Medicare from buying the least expensive pharmaceuticals? Would it grant exemptions from drug pricing laws to Amgen and others (worth half a billion dollars to them!)?  Would a free market permit corporations to deduct obscenely high executive salaries and perks?  Would a free market provide exemptions for advertising costs?  Even for products that are known to cause cancer?  Would a free market reward oil companies with huge tax exemptions to produce climate killing fossil fuels?  And then grant tax deductions for them to advertise to us that they are doing great good for us all?  Would a free market provide government guaranteed loans to anyone?  Would it take tax money from every American to save the un-indicted criminals who crashed us into a depression?  Would a free market work that way?  Really?

            There are convincing arguments for and against all of these “managed market” examples.  We do love our mortgage exemptions.  Around here, we think it’s stupid to exempt advertising costs, and anything relating to the tobacco or oil businesses.  But the LIARS that tell you we have a free market are, well, LYING.  The ills we are suffering are of a mismanaged market, and the proper reckoning for it should bring change to the House and Senate in coming congressional elections.