Also does it make sense to put people who have never run a profitable enterprise in charge of some the world’s largest and (until recently) profitable businesses? Would you promote an obscure director to CEO overnight? Isn’t management experience important?

And don’t tell me that they were on the committee that ran their law firm or supervised the activities of a non-profit or government agency. That experience doesn’t count for much. How many non-profits fail to make money-saving improvements (like outsourcing payroll or upgrading IT) because they “can’t afford it”? And, more importantly, how many lawyers understand the flexibility needed to strike profitable deals? How many bean counters know that a cheaper, ugly car is less profitable than a more expensive, stylish one?

Entrepreneurs, like virtuosos and divas, need a lot of understanding and forbearance in order to dazzle and delight us with their contributions. Stubbornly stamping your foot and insisting that they should act like the rest of the drab majority is the best way to drive them from the country or into the arms of laziness. Either way, the country is made poorer. (This is why Silicon Valley, Lincoln Center, Wall Street and Hollywood tolerate eccentricity; they know that normal people are not outsize wealth producers and the creative people are, to some extent, crazy.) In short, if the guy who just made you a million dollars spends his share on a golden commode and a polka-dot suit, the smart executive would not scold him for extravagance but remind him that if he wants to buy more of these he will need more million-dollar deals next year. Instead, the Ward 3 scolds will point out that if the company didn’t give him the money for golden commodes and polka-dot suits, it would be even more profitable, produce more jobs et cetera. Of course, the mercurial creative will produce less without his access to eccentric rewards.

The Ward 3 mentality is essentially a middle-management outlook, perfect for keeping the boss happy by filling in all of the right boxes and keeping the junior staff in line. Leaders require additional skills. Or as my non-rich grandfather would say: “If they are so smart, why aren’t they rich?”

Unfortunately, our new civil masters are not smart enough to enrich the rest of us either. Expect a blizzard of new regulations that accelerate the downturn followed by lots of puzzled soul-searching in the media about 18 months from now: What went wrong?

Forget all that talk about parallels to the Great Depression. Ward 3 has run the economy once before. The re-run of the late 1970s has begun.