The aftermath of the bailout is sure to help bring a whole host of ridiculous arguments to the fore. Here’s one. Evidently, any Social Security reform that allows people to invest their money in the stock market is a bad idea because the market had a bad week.

Of course, the market was only down 34 points this week–the news of the bailout prompted a rally. But even putting that aside, no one invests in the stock market for a single week. They invest in it for decades. And a long term investment serves to bring about a greater rate of return than anything that government is able to manage.

Get used to having to put up with the nonsensical proposition that private investments are uniformly dangerous and disastrous and that government provides us with the safest investments around. It would seem that we are on the lookout for a new dumb idea to inform our economic decisions. And putting our faith back in government to bring about economic prosperity is just that dumb idea.

Except, of course, that it is not new at all. Quite the contrary. You would think we would have learned by now that government is about as competent at managing the economy as Joe Biden is at going a single day without a gaffe of some kind. You would be wrong.