"I can't get no satisfaction"

Energy, education, healthcare, food, drinking water, clean air . . . what is common in the description of these and other good things? Scarcity. We never have enough of them. And it does not matter how long and how fast we grow our economies. The abyss between our desires and the limited means to satisfy them never closes.

One of my favorite songs goes like this, over and over again: "I can't get no satisfaction." Scarcity is good for more than rock 'n' roll. It gives jobs to people like me. Scarcity is the sole reason for the existence of economics. It gives rise to questions such as: "What is responsible for our lack of satisfaction?" and "What can we do to get more satisfaction?"

In my explanation of the current crisis and search for remedies, I often point to the supply side. I do this because I want more than a temporary Keynesian quick fix. I do it because I don't have to run for re-election every four years. But mostly because I don't want my children to pay for an astronomical debt accumulated in my name by our political elites.

I don't believe in President Obama's change. And I certainly do not believe in changing human nature by restricting private property rights and replacing markets with planners. But I am not an anarcho-capitalist. Getting the bureaucratic monster off our backs and freeing our entrepreneurial potential can lead to more widespread prosperity. One thing it cannot give us is a final solution to the problem of scarcity.

Max Lucado said it best in the Aug. 6 entry from Grace for the Moment: Inspirational Thoughts for Each Day of the Year:

"Real change is an inside job . . . the heart of the matter is and always will be, the matter of the heart. . . . Our problem is sin. . . . We are cut off from the source of life. A new president or policy won't fix that. It can only be solved by God. . . . Society may renovate, but only God re-creates."