Unintended Consequences

.
This is part of a short article in the Boston Herald online.

Fidelity’s Edward “Ned” Johnson jumped into the controversial debate over President Obama’s “New Deal II” and what Johnson called government “make-work projects.”

Without naming names, Johnson praised the administration’s effort to make economic recovery its top priority, saying it was “admirable.”

But Johnson, sounding like he’s never been a big fan of the original New Dealers from the 1930s, warned of too much government involvement in the economy and indicated Fidelity is beefing up its government-affairs unit to fend off possibly burdensome new regulations.

“We can only hope that the government’s cure doesn’t further sicken the patient,” Johnson wrote in his annual update on Fidelity’s performance over the past year.

“During the ’30s, Congress - with guidance from the president and the same kind of good intentions - shifted the country’s cash flow away from productive businesses to government make-work projects, which most likely prolonged the Great Depression,” wrote Johnson, arguably Boston’s most powerful business executive.

As for the financial-system crisis, Johnson also took a somewhat anti-government conservative view toward its causes, saying “this climate was caused by many well-intentioned policies - stimulated by individuals at high levels in government and sanctioned by regulatory structures.”

Those policies helped make “money ridiculously easy to obtain and business people eager to comply with the policies,” Johnson wrote.

Perhaps we should all contemplate this a little. Congress and the Executive branch are unable to see much beyond the next election - thus the actions our government take initiate a kind of "law of unintended consequences."

Can there be a better rationale for firm, enforceable term limits?