"Confessions of a Maturing Libertarian"

Interesting article by Charles Wheelan, Ph.D. in The Naked Economist column on Yahoo! Finance. I would consider myself in the same camp. I have to acknowledge that in real life all manner of sh!t happens. We have to face many truths that may seem contradictory at face value, but that's real life for you:

• Market failure is real.
• Government failure is real.
• Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
• Nature abhors vacuum - even that of power.
• Moral hazards are real.
• Pork-barrel spending is real.
• In a democratic society, citizens will always want to pay themselves more and more money out of thin air (and to think that Toqueville saw this coming some 175 years ago!).
• The typical human does not have a planning horizon of more than a few years, and consequently will not plan well for their own retirement until a few years from it. Most humans will fail to plan for emergencies. This calls for a social safety net, unless you want riots in the street.

C'est la vie...