Thomas Sowell noted that there are no final solutions to the problems of individual humans and civilization, just tradeoffs. To get something there has to be a tradeoff.
According to John Leake, author and journalist who wrote a column on the subject, some people understand this concept. You can’t get a good night’s sleep if you stay up all night partying. You have to curb eating habits to lose weight. If you want to save money, you sacrifice luxuries.
As to the government understanding this philosophy - something got lost in the translation. Those same principles used in household budgets can be used in government.
Somewhere along the line, the government bodies - local, state and national forgot it cannot write checks for every grand scheme in domestic and foreign matters. The imperative to spend money wisely is a discipline that must be a part of habits and a mindset.
We have a government system that has quit limiting spending and runs wildly on what appears to be credit card that keeps extending credit and running up interest and payments. Our leaders act like trust funders with a big bank account and cocaine habit, imposing no limits on spending, making poor decisions, and stupidly losing sight of reality.
Worse, lobbyists and dumb, venal politician friends see no brakes on spending and find it actually pays to mismanage things as perverse incentives start popping up everywhere.
Why bother managing foreign affairs when one can blunder around and start wars that are extremely profitable for the defense industry?
Why bother managing financial affairs when a financial crisis will trigger big government bailouts?
Why offer treatment for a respiratory viral illness with cheap, repurposed FDA-approved drugs when the government can enrich pharma by spending hundreds of billions on a novel vaccine with no product liability for the manufacturers?
Why do anything properly at all when the state can just write vast checks to clean up the gigantic messesthat follow from foolishness?
Fiscal discipline and accountability went by the wayside during the financial crisis of 2008 and the United States has been struck repeatedly by mind-bogglingly stupid social experiments, needless conflicts, destructive ideologies, terrible habits, childish tantrums, and a departure of common sense from public affairs.
Historically, such folly has only been corrected by economic depression and war that kills a lot of people and sobered the rest.
Judging from the demented spending clowns running this country, we could be in for terrible things.
“Many of the great disasters of our time have been committed by experts,” the economist Thomas Sowell once said. Judging from U.S. economy and out-ofcontrol spending, it’s hard not to think of his words.