Hudge and Gudge, Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum

G.K. Chesterton back in 1910 wrote "What's Wrong with the World" which is, like all things that Chesterton wrote, fundamentally prescient. Chesterton seemed incapable of writing anything that wasn't ultimately about everything. In "What's Wrong with the World" he introduces us to Hudge and Gudge.

Hudge is Big Governmnet and Gudge is Big Business and together they conspire to take from us our liberty and our property and ultimately we become slaves of these two collusional forces. This was written yesterday right? Perhaps Hudge and Gudge have been working us over for longer than we realize.

The two remind me of Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum from Lewis Carroll's Alice Through the Looking Glass. A common version of the nursery rhyme begins:
Tweedledum and Tweedledee
Agreed to have a battle;

For Tweedledum said Tweedledee
Had spoiled his nice new rattle.

and it goes on from there. The idea is that Hudge and Gudge while they appear to be in conflict are really brothers under the skin. They are both fleecing the public in an alliance for mutual gain.

We can see this scenario playing out before our eyes as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, through policies fostered by the congress have created mountains of bad debt which no the government runs to the rescue and spreads tax-payer money around profligately but in a way unlikely to solve the problem and the loser is the tax-payer while all the players, Hudge and Gudge, congratulate themselves and pocket the money.

Caught in the middle are those people, large or small organizations, which have tried to be responsible and honest. They are not to be rewarded. GM and Chrysler get mountains of tax payer money, but their bondholders are stiffed as are those holding their debt. Meanwhile, the solvent struggle on. Profligacy is rewarded while responsibility is ignored and indeed raped by taking their taxes to give to the irresponsible. In the long run this penalizes the honorable and rewards the dishonorable.

Government has become a charade. Republicans and Democrats wring their hands about crises which they themselves fomented and they frantically point fingers at everyone but themselves. ACORN, gangster-like, threatens banks if they don't give bad loans. The bad loans are snapped up by the Fannie Mae's and Freddie Macs and put into financial investment instruments and sold to your retirement programs. Then when the bottom drops out there's a double whammy effect: Your retirement programs tank, and you are assessed added taxes to bail out the bad paper while the government points fingers at the very institutions that they forced to make the bad loans in the first place and yell "Greed."

How long do we take this charade in silence? It's Hudge and Gudge shaking hands behind their backs and laughing all the way to the bank, well maybe to the Federal Reserve. What will the money be worth when we really get the printing presses rolling? Not much I'd wager. It is long past time to remedy this problem by reducing the size of government and putting the people back in charge of their own lives. The Nanny State is a failure and it's well on its way to becoming a tyrant as well.