O Estado da Economia

O nosso sistema económico, com todos os planos milagrosos para resolução de um problema em boa parte criado por quem agora os lança, tenderá a ver a sua transparência e equidade degradarem-se. O que, sem estes apoios selectivos, eram decisões de todos, todos os dias, passarão a ser decisões de uma pequena minoria dominante em momentos-chave de influência política, jogos de bastidores e ideologia barata. O dinheiro para este festim, esse, continuará a vir dos bolsos de todos (bom, mais de uns que de outros), todos os dias.

Também a este propósito é muito recomendável a leitura deste artigo de David Boaz no Cato.org:

Turning the Economy over to Politicians

...Even if regulators are as smart as Leonardo da Vinci and as incorruptible as Mother Teresa, they can never have as much knowledge as the decentralized, competitive market process, so planned economies and planned industries fall further and further behind free-market systems.
But in reality, even if they're smart, they're not incorruptible. Political influence always comes into play. What we're seeing with the bailout funds will also happen with the stimulus money.

Government planners claim to be able to aggregate all the available information and make informed decisions for the whole society. But market economies clearly produce far more economic growth than planned economies. It isn't just the United States versus the Soviet Union or East Germany versus West Germany. Consider the customer service and technological advances you get from FedEx versus the post office, or Microsoft and Apple versus the DMV.

If you want money flowing to the companies with good lobbyists and powerful congressmen, then the stimulus bill may accomplish something. But we should all recognize that we're taking money out of the competitive, individually directed part of society and turning it over to the politically controlled sector. Politicians rather than consumers will pick winners and losers. That's not a recipe for recovery.