Limbaugh.

So, President Obama met with GOP leadership last week in an attempt to get this new stimulus bill passed. In this meeting, it is reported he said,

"You can't just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done,"

Goddamn right you can't. Unnamed white house staff insisted that this was an effort to make a large point about bipartisanship. Which is probably right, but I'm happy if Obama manages to marginalize Limbaugh, who is an asshat. And not just because his racist remarks don't go over as well on national TV as they do on his radio show. I'm not making an argument that this is a personal thing with Obama, but I'm sure it has to feel pretty good to needle Limbaugh all he can to make his political case.

Not one to take these things lightly, Rush responded:

There are two things going on here. One prong of the Great Unifier's plan is to isolate elected Republicans from their voters and supporters by making the argument about me and not about his plan. He is hoping that these Republicans will also publicly denounce me and thus marginalize me. And who knows? Are ideological and philosophical ties enough to keep the GOP loyal to their voters? Meanwhile, the effort to foist all blame for this mess on the private sector continues unabated when most of the blame for this current debacle can be laid at the feet of the Congress and a couple of former presidents. And there is a strategic reason for this.

Oh for fuck's sake. Nobody is blaming the markets for this mess, Mr. Limbaugh, you drug-addled piece of shit. Nice straw man. The blame rests on those in the government, Congress, previous administrations, etc, for opening the door to the kind of business behavior that is perfectly normal in a dysfunctional market.

Of course private institutions are going to maximize profits. They can do this by doing all sorts of things, the most egregious examples usually result in a feel-good movie about the little man fighting back, losing, and finding some token victory to cling to as the rain forest is cut down, chemicals continue to pollute, the neighborhood store closes down when a big box comes to town, or unsafe cars blow up their drivers, etc., etc.

Markets are doing what they do. There is nothing wrong with a company in a market trying to maximize profits. The market's function, in its entirety, is providing a way to buy and sell the products of capital and labor in the most efficient way possible. If they didn't, capitalism wouldn't work. To expect any more from it is both foolish and impossible.

This is the whole reason for government regulation. Left to its own devices, a market will eventually consume itself. With adroit regulation--rules of law governing market behavior, a market will not grow as rapidly, nor fall as low. Without it, you get market failure. Finding the right set of rules that continues to allow the market to operate to maximize profits in a sane, sustainable way that minimizes negative externalities is the government's job, as they are the only one who can impose rules on market behavior. Where the government fails to do its job, the market will inevitably fail in its wake.