The Engine of a Free Market: An Analogy

What makes the car go faster?  Do you know what you are doing when you push the gas pedal?  Sometimes, when we get that energized feeling or maybe we are simply hurrying to that important thing, we mash down really hard on that gas pedal.  We “push” that engine to go faster.  We feel like if we push it through the floor it would really haul tail.

An internal combustion engine requires a mixture of air and gas to be sucked into a chamber and then ignited.  When this happens, the piston moves up and down creating vacuum on the down stroke.  This vacuum then pulls in more air and gas to repeat the cycle.  In fact, with a completely “wide open” carburetor, the engine would go faster and faster until it literally burns up and “crashes”.  The carburetor is there to slow the engine down to a manageable speed so that you may drive with some level of control.  The carburetor is controlled through the gas pedal.  Wait a second; the carburetor restricts the amount of air and gas mixture going into the engine?  Yes, when you push on that gas pedal, you are only opening a flapper valve allowing the engine to do what it does naturally: speed up.   

Commercials for nearly 70 years have been advertising that slogan “effortless driving”.  Well, that is a spoof because there is nothing you can do from the driver’s seat to make that automobile go any faster than the engineers designed that engine to run.

Have you ever watched NASCAR and hear about restrictor plate races?  That restrictor plate is supposed to even out every car to run the same by having the same size restrictor plate on the intake manifold.  No one driver can open up that valve more than any other.  This allows the race to be determined based on driving skill rather than engineered speed. 

Any free market economy is fundamentally based on needs or wants (demand) and the amount and availability of goods or services (supply).    When transactions are happening quickly, it is said to be going with some speed.  When masses of people perceive this speed and join in the process of buying and spending, this creates momentum often referred to as a booming economy.  Too much speed and momentum can lead to high and even out of control inflation.  Rapidly rising inflation can cause pandemonium and the whole system crashes.  This is similar to the engine running with no restriction.

The US government has two economic systems:  a monetary policy and a fiscal policy.  The monetary policy attempts to control the amount of money in the system.  The fiscal policy is how much the government taxes and spends.  Both of these systems are restrictions on the free economy.  They are that little flap that opens and closes when someone pushes that gas pedal.  The more a government taxes, it starves off cash (gas) from the economy (engine).  In order to spend money, it must first take some.  When adjusting the amount of money in the economy, it is adjusting the flow of the carburetor (lean or rich gas mixture).

Currently, we have people in charge that believe in a lot of restriction on free open markets.  They don’t understand what they are doing behind the wheel.  They think they are pushing the gas pedal by spending government money, but fail to comprehend that they are restricting (taxing) that free economy (engine) from doing what it does naturally.  Any increase in government is an increase in restriction on the free open market. 

How many politicians are trying to pedal this car?  This isn’t the Flinstone’s car.  Open up the free market by shrinking the size of government restriction.  Does anyone know what a choke does?