From Roger Cohen’s column in The New York Times about the government’s attempts to fix the financial meltdown:

But as the state intervenes, in what Ed Yardeni, an investment analyst, called “a giant global game of Whac-A-Mole,” the moles keep popping out of new black holes in our financial system.

“We’ve tried rubber mallets, now we’re using bazookas, but we’re flying blind,” Yardeni told me.

Another testimonial to the fact that the economy is too complex for the government to manage. Each step the government takes precipitates dozens of additional steps it must take, but it doesn’t know the direction in which it should move. Lack of information leaves trial-and-error as the only mode of operation open to the government.

Economists have known and have been saying this for over a century, but neither of the two candidates for President get it. I just heard McCain talking about how his government will fix the economy and get it back on track. Obama counters each McCain fix with about three of his own. McCain wants to fix what he sees is wrong with the economy while Obama wants to take charge of its day-to-day operation. Neither will succeed. In fact, both will aggravate the problems.

My opinion is that Obama will do more damage than McCain. Isn’t it pathetic that in choosing a President we have to resort to picking the one that will inflict the least amount of damage on the country?