Sunbeams from Cucumbers

Here is a bit from an opinion piece by George Will published in the Washington Post. As usual, the wit is clever. Here are the first two paragraphs:

Gulliver's travels took him to the Academy of Lagado, where "professors contrive new rules and methods" for everything: "One man shall do the work of ten; a palace may be built in a week, of materials so durable as to last forever without repairing. All the fruits of the earth shall come to maturity at whatever season we think fit to choose, and increase a hundredfold more than they do at present." There was, however, the "inconvenience" that "none of these projects" had yet come to fruition and "the whole country lies miserably waste." But "instead of being discouraged," people were "fifty times more violently bent upon prosecuting their schemes," which included "extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers."

At the Academy of Obama, professors and others devise plans for extracting a new and improved automobile industry from a semi-sort-of-bankruptcy arrangement that -- if it survives judicial scrutiny; that is not certain -- will give the United Auto Workers 39 percent of General Motors, with the government owning 50 percent. During future contract negotiations, will the union's adversary be an administration that the union helped to put in power?

In this article I agree with George Will more than usual. But I would clarify the scope of our agreement to a couple of simple principles:

• Let private business run businesses.


• Let government regulate business.

The US just went through eight years of an ideological president who advocated the first and dismantled the second. George Will is upset because it appears that the US is headed into eight years where a "pragmatic" president advocates the second and may be hindering the first.

I personally think that Obama is like FDR. He is trying many things to find what works. Like FDR, he will probably learn to stop trying to directly intervene and will concentrate more on governing and ensuring laws that better balance the economy and the endless struggle between:

• the rich and powerful (business) who would own everything and scheme daily to rent the air needed to breath to the non-propertied classes


• the dispossessed (the average Joe) who would level the playing field by redistributing the amassed wealth of the rich so that their children get a chance at a good education and a good job