It looks like we’re going to be breaking a lot more windows over the next four years, and crowing about what government can do.
Barack Obama proclaims “We saved GM.” There’s a lot to argue with in that statement, but here’s one point I’d like to camp on: It neglects the fact that we could used the “investment” ($55 billion in lost money, from what I recall) for a lot of other things that could have given us a better result.
Obama’s logic is just another example of the “broken window fallacy,” which, which applied to politics, means that when we focus on the benefits of a specific government action, we neglect its costs.
I fear that our country has made a horribly wrong turn today. There will be real damage, including a return to chronically high unemployment and inflation, not to mention a further decline of personal freedoms.
But all that may be the visible losses of returning Obama to office. As with the broken window fallacy, there will be unseen damages, too: the businesses that won’t be opened; the jobs that won’t be created; American oil and coal we won’t use; the things we can’t buy because we will be forced to buy electricity, health care, food, etc., at prices higher than we’d willingly pay without government coercion, the children who won’t be born because people look at the future and lose hope; and so forth.
But look on the bright side: more and more Americans will be able to get high through pot, thanks to votes in Colorado and Washington. Peace out, man!
First published at the Michigan View