An Apples To Apples Comparison

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You know the adage, that's comparing apples to oranges. Since I am writing about that wonderful fruit I call an apple, I wish to make a comparison to that fruit and the current state of the economy. A government created apple hysteria was start that drove up the price from $3 per pound to $10. Stores loaded up and even used them as collateral for expansion. Suddenly the price collapsed to $5 and finally to $2. Now government takes notice. What can government do to deal with the problem? It can try to boost the price of apples by forcing stores to raise their prices. But what about consumers? They won't buy at $10. So the apples sit and rot. Maybe government should buy them all or force consumers to buy them. Also perhaps stores will just not buy any more at all. Government could force them to. But it can't force them to stay in business. People can always walk away. So perhaps government can just buy the stores, all in the interest of keeping the price of apples up. But it will have to buy the apple-leveraged stores at a much higher price than the market would offer, so this is a bad economic deal on the face of it. The tangles can get ever more complicated and billions and trillions can be spent. You can put everyone in a prison camp and force people at the point of a gun to buy and sell apples at $10. But in the end, the problem is still the same: the price of apples wants to fall. Nothing government does changes that one fact. To attempt to change it is like trying to change gravity. Of course, the government’s central bank can raise all prices through inflation to the point that apples do in fact cost $10, but this is purely cosmetic. In fact, in real terms, the price of apples is still $2. It is a pointless and destructive activity to try changing this. You only cause massive damage in the attempt. Of course this is the same thing that happen with the housing market. Once again government stepped in where it did not need to step, but as usually government instead of stepping backward decided to run forward. Big government is bad government no matter what the reason is.