Excessive government created vicious cycle
Published in The Tennessean , April 25, 2008 Excessive government created vicious cycle By RICHARD J. GRANT The current "global food crisis" is not a crisis in its own right. It is a symptom of a broader intellectual crisis that has spawned a vicious cycle of increasing government intervention, here and abroad. Excessive and poorly conceived government regulations, taxes and subsidies have created a cluster of crises, and now the fluctuating prices will be used as an excuse to increase government meddling even further. We could start by looking at extreme cases, such as Zimbabwe, where Robert Mugabe has liberated his country from the status of net agricultural exporter and turned it into an aid-dependent exporter of hungry people. That's what you can do with just the right mix of bad economic policies and corrupt political practices. Third World governance begat and maintains our current portfolio of Third World countries. With a little more effort we, too, could achieve ...