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Change is good, and I’ve always welcomed it. President-elect Barack Obama picked a great campaign theme and rode it for all it was worth across the finish line and soon into the White House. I hope and pray he reneges on most of his change promises, at least the ones referring to changing or reforming the country’s capitalist free enterprise economic system.

The chorus of the Buffalo Springfield song “For What It’s Worth” keeps running through my head: “It’s time we stop, hey what’s that sound/ Everybody look what’s goin down.” So let’s reflect for a few minutes on the subtle and not so subtle attacks upon our free enterprise system today, what change might mean to us and what we in Fairbanks can and should do about it.

To help my Introduction to Business students understand economic systems, I tell them about the economic cows. Under communism, you have two cows; the government takes your cows and gives you milk. Under socialism, you have two cows; the government takes your cows and sells you milk. Under fascism, you have two cows; the government takes your cows and shoots them. Under nazism, you have two cows; the government takes your cows and shoots you. Under capitalism, you have two cows; you keep your cows, then sell one and buy a bull.

A capitalistic, free enterprise, market-driven economy created the oldest continuous form of government on planet Earth today — that of the United States of America. Think about all the countries ruled by kings, emperors, shoguns and czars that were great when the tiny and insignificant 13 colonies formed a country and adopted the Constitution more than 200 years ago. All of those once major countries have changed their forms of government and diminished in power. The American experiment of a country led by common people and powered by capitalism and free enterprise outlasted them all and is now the world’s lone super-power.

The problems with our economic system have always come when greedy capitalists are allowed to milk the system, unchecked, without oversight. William F. Buckley once said, “The problem with capitalism is capitalists, the problem with socialism is socialism.” The problem with capitalists multiplies exponentially when legislators and bureaucrats, who have oversight responsibilities, mix social and political policy issues with sound financial oversight. University of Alaska Fairbanks economics professor Mike Pippenger said, “By the 1990s, expansion of homeownership was constrained by existing underwriting standards.

That is, low income and therefore high risk borrowers did not have access to the mortgage market. Regulations and statutes were changed to provide incentives to mortgage originators to extend mortgages to higher risk, lower income borrowers. These changes were intended to increase overall homeownership.”

Pippenger went on to say, “Simply put, as usual, in this and many other cases, government decisionmakers suffered from a ‘Fatal Conceit.’ That conceit is the belief that government can control a part of the economy (homeownership) without adverse consequences elsewhere.

“Unfortunately, those adverse consequences are being felt today and will be felt for sometime in the future. In effect, the apparently overriding social policy of expanding homeownership led to financial market instability. So, the end result was a trade-off between temporarily increasing the share of homeownership and increasing financial market instability. Obviously, policymakers didn’t understand that ultimate trade-off, but policymakers tend to ignore the law of unintended consequences.”

The law of consequences states, “unintended consequences always outnumber intended consequences.”

I talked with Rep. Don Young’s staff asking them why he was one of few legislators who voted “No” on the $700 billion bailout bill. According to his staff, Young said, “I understand that we have a grave economic problem right now, but I am concerned that this bill is nothing more than a slippery slope to socialism. Once the government starts acquiring private institutions, where is the line in the sand? It gets pushed further and further. This bill, unfortunately, reminds me of the Patriot Act; we quickly react in the case of a crisis instead of being proactive and then pass sweeping legislation we regret later. We are pushing an agenda where profits are privatized, but losses are socialized at the expense of taxpayer dollars. A bailout of Wall Street should be the last resort, not the first.”

Unfortunately, in the blame game and bailout talks today, we are looking to change our economic system and not change the offending players.

Maybe, instead of bailing them out, we should take the automakers and officers and directors of failing financial institutions and reinstitute public flogging and tar and feathering and display those corrupters of capitalism in head stocks on the public square.

Next week: “ECON 102: Do I really want my Uncle Sam to buy me stocks in banks and automakers?”