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Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Our Nation's Future

Our nation is rapidly approaching a point from which there's little chance to avoid a financial collapse. The heart of our problem can be seen as a tragedy of the commons. That's a set of circumstances when something is commonly owned and individuals acting rationally in their own self-interest produce a set of results that's inimical to everyone's long-term interest. Let's look at an example of the tragedy of the commons phenomenon and then apply it to our national problem.

Imagine there are 100 cattlemen all having an equal right to graze their herds on 1,000 acres of commonly owned grassland. The rational self-interested response of each cattleman is to have the largest herd that he can afford. Each cattleman pursing similar self-interests will produce results not in any of the cattlemen's long-term interest — overgrazing, soil erosion and destruction of the land's usefulness. Even if they all recognize the dangers, does it pay for any one cattleman to cut the size of his herd? The short answer is no because he would bear the cost of having a smaller herd while the other cattlemen gain at his expense. In the long term, they all lose because the land will be overgrazed and made useless.

We can think of the federal budget as a commons to which each of our 535 congressmen and the president have access. Like the cattlemen, each congressman and the president want to get as much out of the federal budget as possible for their constituents. Political success depends upon "bringing home the bacon." Spending is popular, but taxes to finance the spending are not. The tendency is for spending to rise and its financing to be concealed through borrowing and inflation.

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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I would suggest the situation is not quite as innocent as the author writes. The global economy has been carefully designed to collapse so that it can be consolidated into the hands of our masters - the international bankers. These bankers own the Congress. The Congresspeople do exactly as they are told.
The media's job ( owned by the bankers ) is to make it appear that the Congressperson acts in the interest of his/her constituents. Hence the "self serving actions" of the Congress. The Congresspeople are chosen, not elected. They do not care about the interest of the constituents.
Therefore the appearance of "looking out for the constituents" is an illusion.

Anonymous said...

Agreed 8:12. You are absolutely right. The only thing the wealthy elite - or bankers - can't control is the desire of the human heart to seek liberty and freedom. Unfortunately, the pure human heart also wants to believe in fellow man. Even to the point that they let themselves be fooled by the greedy again and again. The time is ripe for another American revolution and it will happen. The tree of liberty is thirsty and we all know what that means.