For governments everywhere, taxes and regulations are like Lays Potato Chips – no one can eat just one.
In part, of course, because governments’ appetite for taking our money and controlling our lives is insatiable. It’s their nature.
And because government intervention just about always makes things worse.
Damaging Dodd-Frank is Making Things Worse
Obama’s ($787 Billion) Stimulus Plan Made Crisis Worse
Which makes predictions like this not exactly Nostradamus-esque:
Perversely and manipulatively, governments use the damage they do – to justify more government.
(ObamaCare author Jonathan) Gruber said if ObamaCare was not successful at controlling costs, “we’ll have to revisit single-payer” – i.e. government-only health care.
Obama: Wall Street Reform is Unfinished Business
Bill Clinton: Stimulus Wasn’t Big Enough
Governments even manage to give themselves phony props – as their policies do real damage.
Unemployment Rate Drops as More Americans Give Up Looking for Work
Get the heads-governments-win-tails-we-lose nature of all that?
This is absolutely not U.S. government-specific.
Brazil Sugar Industry Receives Massive Government Subsidies
Think of this as a permanent government stimulus. Doing all the damage of our domestic stimulus – over, and over, and….
Which inexorably leads to things like:
Brazil to Raise Ethanol Blend in Gasoline to 27 Pct on Feb 15
Brazil’s struggling sugar and ethanol mills got more good news on Monday after the government granted an expected increase in the national blend of the biofuel in gasoline to 27 percent on Feb. 15 from the current 25 percent, industry officials said.
The higher blend is the latest of several measures taken by the government expected to have a positive effect on the industry’s bottom line going forward.
I’m not expecting it to have a positive effect? Are you?
Brazil’s mills get massive government subsidies and Crony Socialist assistance – how on Utopia are they struggling?
Yet somehow Brazil’s answer to too much government is – more government. That’s what passes for “good news” in Huge Government Land.
Again, we incessantly suffer the same warped thinking here.
Why More Financial Aid Raises College Tuition Costs
Proof Perfect That The Minimum Wage Costs Jobs
Let’s just mandate a unicorn in every garage.
Back to Brazil’s poor policies and thinking:
In the past years, local firms such as Raizen , Biosev, Bunge, Sao Martinho and Guarani have struggled to post consistent and robust profits.…
Again, how on Utopia are they not posting consistent and robust profits – what with the consistent and robust government money and Crony Socialist assistance?
Also improving the outlook for mills was the government’s January decision to raise taxes on gasoline starting on Feb. 1, allowing ethanol mills to raise prices in tandem and recover profit margins.
All of these new taxes and higher prices are fabulous news for Brazil’s government and its pet industry. They’ll each be getting a whole lot more money.
It’s abysmal for Brazil’s people – and their wallets. For whom – we’re told by Huge Government proponents – all this Huge Government is created and grown. You know – to ‘help” them.
Government-Uber-Alles proponents are utterly engrossed with their own navels. “Save the Government Programs” becomes an all-encompassing fetish – no matter how grievous the damage done to everyone and everything else.
(See also: Trying to keep together the utterly unrealistic, hurtling apart European Union.)
So – Huge Government Brazil has entered into another round of Huge Government. Doing Huge Government damage to even more economic sectors – to try to save a sector utterly corrupted by Huge Government.
Anyone else notice a pattern here?
Editor’s Note: This first appeared in Red State.