“Is Our Economy Too Complicated for Our 18th-Century Political System?” That’s the question Michael Moran asks in Slate. It’s an interesting article, but he kind of ignores the elephant in the room: the Federal Reserve, which was established in 1913. As any good Ron Paul supporter will tell you, there’s nothing about it in the 18th-Century document upon which our government is based. (Of course, what same Paul supporters forget is that the power of monetary policy lies with Congress, which I don’t think they would see as an improvement over a central bank.)

I have in previous posts addressed the issue of the Democrats’ recent tendency towards economic deregulation that Moran writes about, so I won’t re-hash it now. The main point I want to make is that, at least on reading his article, it sounds to me like he’s asking the wrong question. It’s not that the economy’s too complicated, it’s that the parties are too beholden to certain special interests.

Moran also says:

The real problem is the civil war raging within the GOP, whereby a weakened elite (wiling to make a deal) has lost control of its nativist, willfully ignorant right flank. Nothing less than electoral failure will bring that war to an end, and in spite of early polls showing a race in November, I think failure is precisely what awaits the GOP in November. There is no teacher, after all, like failure.

Yes, people thought that in 2008, as well.