If it walks like a mea culpa...

...and talks like a mea culpa it's probably a mea culpa. Former chairman of the US Federal Reserve, the revered and beloved Alan Greenspan, announces that he is shocked and appalled that the unregulated markets he so vociferously promoted just don't seem to work.

Free markets kill

A new study from a researcher at Cambridge University makes a link between IMF mandated cuts in universal healthcare in Eastern European with increases in the rate of tuberculosis there. The study fails to discuss whether these people are using their best judgement by infecting themselves after a careful cost/benefit analysis.

Look, the omniscient hand of the market at work

As petrol prices in the US approached 4 USD a US gallon American drivers drove 1.4 billion fewer miles in April than they had the year before. I'm sure someone will try to ruin this by calling for a petrol tax holiday or something equally stupid.

In which I admit that...

...Bill-o O'Reilly is capable of nearly making sense as he does in this clip where he admits that the market doesn't work and that it will take big government intervention to fix it. (Of course, his solutions don't actually make sense or will make things worse but remember that every journey begins with a single step!)

A joy to watch

The energy market in the state of Texas is the most deregulated in the nation and given the omniscience and omnipotence of the market one would expect that Texas would be free of any difficulties in these troubled times as the price of oil soars. One couldn't be more wrong. Unfortunately some meddling commie-types at the Texas Public Utility Commission look set to prevent the market to work it majestic magic!

If it ain't broke don't fix it...

...and I am certain that there will be those on the right who will argue that the fact that there are now 25 million under insured Americans, in addition to the millions of uninsured, is not a symptom of a terrible malaise in the American health care (lack of) system but rather that these 25 million citizens are simply making intelligent and uncoerced free market choices about how best to manage their health care (and still have enough to eat). The free market at work is a beautiful thing to watch indeed.

How is this possible?

The head of the Bank of International Settlements has come out to say that the omniscient, omnipotent,omnipresent yet invisible hand of the market simply ignored the warning signs of the collapse in the US real estate market. Well, I ask you, what the hell is the point of being omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent, let alone invisible, if you're simply going to waste your talents?

Whatever happened to allowing the market to decide?

Captain Codpiece and his evil minions, like most "free market" capitalists, only favour allowing the omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent invisible hand of the market to work its magic when they perceive said magic to favour their interests and when they perceive that it does not they demand government intervention and control. One wonders what they are so afraid of in the case of Creekwater Farms testing its cattle for mad cow in order to facilitate exports.

'Tis a thing of beauty...

...to watch the omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient invisible hand of the market at work as the profits of multinational agribusinesses soar as the growing global food crisis drives those poor to desperation. Normal service is resumed.

Just occasionally I find that I agree with the omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient yet invisible "hand of the market"

Finally, with gasoline prices continuing to rise, the American commuter is rediscovering public transit. Of course they are driving to the station but it's a start!

This is another reason why the McCain-Clinton idea of a "gas tax holiday" is such a bad idea. As I have suggested before if anything the tax rate should be raised progressively over time to perhaps a dollar a gallon or more and the additional funds ring fenced for mass transit projects and alternative, renewable energy research.

There will be no rationing in American health care!

These new practices by the American health insurance industry are not, of course, not at all rationing but the omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient invisible hand of the market hard at work ensuring that insurance company profits remain high and if that is at the expense of some poor, unfortunate sick folk well that is just the way things work, OK?

Well they all look alike don't they?

Chinese or not, I can't tell only pharmaceutical plant from another. I can't see why the US Food and Drug Administration should be held to higher standards. Curiously, there has been a spate of problems with drugs produced by the un-inspected plant. But don't worry. This is the type of problem that the omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent invisible hand of the free market will sort out in short order.

The market hath spoken

Who are we to argue with the omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent yet invisible of hand of the free market? Why should American health insurance companies be compelled to actually provide healthcare?

A reminder for Reaganites: there will be no rationing in America!

Nah, this system ain't broken!

Disgrace is the only word I can think of to describe the situation of Arielle Moye of Colombia SC. She had a heart transplant at the age of seven but now that she has turned nineteen she no longer qualifies for Medicaid and therefore has no means to afford the 3200 USD per month she needs just to pay for the anti-rejection drugs.

Should she die because of this one would think that the omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent invisible hand of the market will have some serious explaining to do.

Lies, damn lies and health care

I am certain that there are lefties everywhere who are trumpeting these statistics that show that the US, with its properly configured free market health care "system", and France, with its dastardly communised medicine, come at opposite ends of the table when measuring medically preventable deaths. These godless socialists will undoubtedly note that the US comes at the bottom of this measure of the world's industrialised nations and claim it as a victory for their side. What they will refuse to see and therefore understand is this is an example of the omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent invisible hand of a free market at work. These health care consumers have freely chosen to die in the manner that they did and therefore the American system is clearly the best on the planet.

(Note: this interpretation may present some philosophical problems for some free-market members of the "right to life" crowd who oppose any form of "voluntary" death (except in the armed forces) but I am certain we can spin out way out of that!)