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Depression

• No Third Solution

First it was the broken-window debacle known formally as CARS, or colloquially as “Cash For Clunkers”: by Government edict, thousands of functioning vehicles were destroyed with sodium silicate. Adding insult to injury, the vehicles (parts of which were ostensibly salvageable) will be scrapped. Thanks to CARS, the replacement driver-side door that you neede for your 1995 whatchamacallit is going to be a little bit harder to find. The market for used cars, and the market for replacement/salvage parts just got a little bit thinner, so prices go up a little bit more. And then there is agriculture, which has been silently (but openly) engaging in what can only be described as price-fixing. It’s been said elsewhere, but I’ll repeat it: if any other industry openly flaunted it’s price-fixing policies (Big Oil, anyone?) it would quickly draw the ire of politicians, bloggers, and Joe Six-Packs everywhere. Everyone would be in an uproar over “price gouging”. But I’ve heard nary a whisper abou

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