The source of the power of the Leviathan

The key to the Leviathan’s success is in its ability to pick winners and losers. It gets to impose barriers on some and benefits on others. How is that done? Like this.

First you sign a a red, white and blue executive order that makes the MAGA crowd swoon with joy. Like this…

President Trump signed an executive order Tuesday that would tighten rules that award visas to skilled foreign workers and directs the federal government to enforce rules that bar foreign contractors from bidding on federal projects.

The order is a first effort to promote a “Buy American, Hire American” agenda, a key promise Trump made during the campaign.

You make sure, however, that it is full of loopholes and exceptions. For example, Trump’s Buy American rules can be waived if the sought after goods are not available in the United States or if U.S. providers produce goods of insufficient quality or if the cost of U.S. goods is “unreasonable”. They can also be waived if the rules serves “the public interest.”

Okay, who decides if the goods are not available, are of insufficient quality, the price is unreasonable or what is in the public interest? Why, that is decided by the central bureaucracy of the Trump Administration.

Understand? So which companies must suffer the burden of these new regulations and which will receive waivers so they do not? Let’s just say that having friends in the White House helps. Everybody knows that best way to have friends in Washington is with your checkbook.

So let’s review…

1) Pass heavy handed regulations.
2) Write in waivers that allow government decide who must obey and who doesn’t.
3) Start deciding.
4) Power!

Simple.

But hey, it’s patriotic, right?