I’m watching CNN do an interview with Jim DeMint, the Republican Senator from South Carolina.

They asked him about what the government should do instead of the bailout.  His answer was bizarre.  Basically, his stance is that government continues to be too involved in the free market.  We should cut corporate taxes and capital gains taxes (or just get rid of them), etc.

If we do that, then the market will take care of itself.  We simply didn’t deregulate enough.  We must do more!  Think about that.  What next?  Make corporations completely immune to lawsuits?

(btw, ask them if they think government is interfering by allowing the existence of the corporation as a legal entity)

This is almost a religious issue with these guys (as Senator Clinton pointed out a few minutes earlier).

God didn’t help me even though I prayed.  Well, then you didn’t pray hard enough.

Or, as some psychics will say, I can’t use my powers because of all the doubters in the room.

There is ALWAYS an excuse when your truth falls apart.

Look, the only thing I really know about econimics is that if money moving around is good, then the surest way to make that happen is to give money to poor people.  I am no expert in any way.  What I do see, though, is an awful lot of empirical evidence to say that deregulation has been allowed to go way too far and no evidence to show that letting it go further will, in some magical way, cause greed and the desire to fulfill immediate short-term goals to come under control.