No Problem Too Large

November 9th, 2025

Answer this: what do the people down the street - in the gray house - need by way of shoes and socks?

One of the conclusions drawn over the past few days by some of the observers of our political condition is that the economy is at the center of the voters’ concern. The high cost of things (cars, houses, food), the overall rate of inflation over the past 5 years is causing many voters to call on government to “fix things.”

It’s worth remembering that, despite the doom-mongering among some, we do indeed have it pretty good. The average health care available to virtually everyone in the US would awe the health care available to the President just 50 years ago. The ability to diagnose, to treat, to provide emergency care, has advanced in leaps and bounds over the last 2 generations and those advances are now available to virtually the entire country. 

Every house and apartment and office in air conditioned: climate controlled, no matter how hot or how cold it might be - which was not the case just 50 years ago. In 1970 about 1/3rd of houses had air-conditioning (window units mostly), and “central air” was just being put into new houses.

Cars last longer, our entertainment has expanded a hundredfold, air travel is a commonplace, tropical fruits are available in every state, around the year. None of this was around 60 years ago. 

So, despite the caterwauling, things aren’t quite terrible. 

Note that such things as air conditioning, the internet, cell phones, laptop computers and all that they bring with them (on line shopping, for example), may have had support and assistance from the federal government (mainly the Pentagon), but it was private industry that has overseen the real development of these modern marvels.

Nevertheless, there is justifiable concern about the economy. And there has been a vote, at least in some democrat populated states and cities, to turn to government to fix the economy. And the solution appears to be the mantra from the Mayor elect of New York: “We will prove that there is no problem too large for government to solve, and no concern too small for it to care about.”

Hmmmmm…

“Government as the solution.” The problems with the economy really are problems with inflation, the rise in the price of nearly everything over the last 5 years.  And what caused that? Inflation is caused by the expansion of the money supply. And what causes that? Deficit spending by a government that is too large for the tax base. 

Or said differently: big government is the problem. And yet some voters are expecting big government to solve the problem. This is akin to asking Dracula to solve a blood supply problem.

Thing is, big governments don’t even perform well. The hallmark of this type of government is the term “central planning.” The Mayor-elect said as much: the government can solve any problem.

Look at that writ small. Instead of the government working out all the solutions - his case - for the problems of a city of 8 million, consider just your neighborhood. Assume 3 streets, each with about 40 houses on each side, so 240 houses, and about 4 people in each, on average. So, about 1,000 people. New York City employs about 330,000 people. But let’s just assume the top 25,000 people in the city. This would translate into 3 people in our neighborhood of 1,000.

Now, assume the 3 people on this triumvirate have all the decision-making authority of the Village. Where and how money gets spent on fixing roads, sidewalks, picking up trash, policing, schooling, aid to the families that need aid, the schedule for the van to pick folks up and shuttle them here and there, oversight of the clinic, even, as per the Mayor elect, the oversight of running a grocery store. And, as the mayor says, no concern too small. What light bulbs should the neighbors buy? What length leash should they use for walking there dog? This and tens of thousands of other issues will come up. What shoes and socks for the family in the gray house?

And now comes the interesting part: the triumvirate runs on an annual budget: so you need to have some sort of model before the beginning of the year that frames out what kind of shoes and shirt, dog-leashes, and new cell phones, van schedules (so you can also schedule van maintenance), and that other stuff; you need to decide, before the beginning of the fiscal year, all the needs to all the 240 families in your Village. Because that’s what central planning is all about. You, being a member of the Triumvirate, now have the responsibility to see into each of the houses on the street, that gray one down the block, and make the decisions they want…

Fact is, it’s virtually impossible. So you act as every other government has, you will default to simply making the decisions you think best. You will decide what they want and they will have to live with it. And if you get it wrong, well, maybe you’ll address this next year. And maybe not.

The problems faced by cities like New York are money problems, money problems caused by spending too much, because when a government says it needs to address all the problems, it will, even when it doesn’t know how to solve them. It is insisting that the triumvirate can know what kind of shoes and socks are needed in the gray house. And then demanding the money to pay for those decisions.

Big governments, chasing problems far beyond their scope or their expertise, have spent more than they have, left huge debts in their wake, and huge pieces of infrastructure in need of repair. 

Big government caused these problems by spending money they don’t have, often on things they didn’t need, while ignoring the less glamorous items, and in turn have generated huge debts. How is bigger government going to solve that debt? Because that is the root of all our economic problems. Answer that simple question.

And then tell the folks in the gray house what kind of shoes they should wear.