The Invisible Hand Picks Your Pocket

Capitalists and corporatists love to blather about the wisdom of the "Invisible Hand of the Market." Adam Smith conceived the idea as a maxim that suggested as an individual pursued his/her own interests that this also helped those within his/her community. There is an underlying suggestion that bad actors are punished due to the harm to their reputation and the resulting wariness of those conducting business with them.

The Invisible Hand is a nice metaphor that suggests a sense of quaint, rural living where everyone knows everyone and your reputation means something. It is only natural that robber barons would use imagery that seems so comforting. Let's drop in a little "Don't Worry, Be Happy," as the soundtrack.

The mortgage crisis meltdown continues and everyday people are losing their homes at a record rate while investment banks, predatory lenders and AIG are bailed out because they are seen as too important to fail. Where is the Invisible Hand? That's just it. That is their argument. These corporate cretins who have manufactured this crisis through their greed truly do believe that they are so important to the rest of us that they must be subsidized. All praise the Invisible Hand from which all profits flow.

But when the profits quit rolling and the accounting is due, capitalism just won't do. It is truly stunning to witness rabid free-market capitalists demand government subsidies to support their incompetence. Privatize the profits, socialize the costs. The Invisible Hand seems to be up to something.

It's pulling the strings on your government and lifting the dollars right out of your pocket.
Adam Smith was a naive fool.