The Death of an American Mule

Think of a hybrid, whether it's one of those ubiquitous bailout-backed vehicles that you see happy families driving around town in bailout-backed commercials or magnificent beasts such as the Liger, the Wolphin or the humble Mule. Hybrids are impressive at times, but they don't have much of a future. Our system is an ungainly hybrid of capitalism and socialism that began when socialism was inserted as a humanizing fallback position for capitalism. Capitalism riding on socialism was meant to be more moral than the naked variety. But lately capitalism has turned into the horse and socialism into the rider, and we have just enough capitalism to pay for all the socialism.