Plundering pirates are everywhere

ATLANTA -- Bailout package?

What bailout package?

Stimulus package?

What stimulus package?

You must mean the freshly minted and more politically palatable moniker, "economic recovery program." That is what the incoming Obama administration and its communications directors at The New York Times are telling their friends in the media to call it.

Anyone with any economic sense at all knows that the economy will recover on its own.

It therefore becomes a political imperative that the Democrats give it a name in order to get proper credit.

Democrats wanted to name their spending in a manner that would fool voters.

They felt like they waited too long when gas was $4.25 a gallon to pass a nonbinding resolution entitled "The Democrats Acting Like They Can Actually Reduce Worldwide Oil Prices by Blaming Others Act of 2008" to get credit for the $1.46 a gallon I paid for gas yesterday.

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In a swashbuckling pirate adventure that did not involve Johnny Depp, Somali pirates were reported to have taken in $85 million in shakedown ransom/pirate money from oil companies in the last year and paid no taxes on it.

Our Congress has been mute on the matter because this caper combines the favorite policies of both the Democrats and Republicans.

The pirates take only oil, not ethanol. As even Third World pirates with $85 million in cash realize, it makes no economic sense to make gas from corn.

Liberal senators were incensed by the Somali pirates doing this.

Stealing money from the rich and not paying taxes on the offshore profits!

They strongly feel that should be the sole province of politically connected hedge-fund managers.

But worry not.

The U.N. is on this pirate thing, having drafted a "cease and desist" missive on the matter.

And if there is anything these Third World marauding pirates will not monkey with, it is a sternly worded memo from the U.N.

In fact, the U.N. does have the deterrent of Article 110 of the Law of the Sea Convention, which forbids ships to fire on pirates. Instead -- and I am not making this up -- they are first required to board their ship to politely inquire of the pirates whether they are, in fact, pirates.

I am pretty sure the "law" has them identify the pirates by their eye patches and always woefully undersized treasure chests that never seem to be able to hold all of their gold.

The young Somali pirates are said to be drunk and on cocaine as they run rampant, and both Obama and President Bush have been mum on the matter.

Perhaps they are fearful of sounding hypocritical, because that is the way both spent their formative years.

Republicans seem poised to not vote on a bailout for the poorly managed automobile industry.

They find it much easier to adhere to their principles when they are not actually in power.

Letting a nonviable business fail, so that it can be replaced by a more efficient one, is simple economic Darwinism.

To sum up, Republicans do not want Darwin's theory of survival of the fittest taught to our kids in school, but they do like it applied to business.

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Democrats are torn on the bailout for the American automakers.

On one hand, they want to feather the beds of the unions, who count on them making their jobs just costly enough that the company they work for can stay solvent long enough for elder union members to retire.

On the other hand, they need someone to pay their $18-million-a-year Viagra bills well into their golden years.

In return, Democrats want Detroit to make smaller cars so their limousines can get around them in Washington traffic on their way to a private jet that will whisk them off to a global warming summit.

Executives of U.S. car manufacturers bragged to Congress that they make the safest cars in the world right now, and I think they are right -- at least on that issue.

It is really hard to harm a customer in a car wreck if your vehicles never leave the showroom floor.

So if things work as I imagine for the Somali buccaneers, the smart and intrepid founding pirates will sell their business to less-astute operators who, over time and through shortsighted, self-serving decision-making, will run the business into the ground.

Then they will apply for, and get, a U.S. congressional taxpayer-funded bailout. Arrrgh!

Ron Hart is a Southern libertarian columnist. E-mail: revron10@aol.com.