“Unintended Consequences” meets “Cost/Benefit Analysis”

Well, they sort of meet. Perhaps I should say Unintended Consequences DOES NOT MEET Cost/Benefit Analysis/

Cost/Benefit Analysis (“CBA”) simply is not done in America with the exception of an occasional stab by business (Corporate America is TERRIFIED of CBA because it might hold up to the harsh light of day that for the most part Corporations get very, very, very little benefit and a great deal of cost from their CEOs; more on this later).

Unintended consequences (“UC”) is what it is – an outcome, result, or side effect of an action or actions.

Now imagine the UC’s of a standard operating procedure of no CBA and you have just described our political, justice, economic, healthcare, financial markets, and energy policies. Why? Because CBA’s are not warm and fuzzy! They deal with the harsh realities of life. What policy maker is going to stand up to the microphone and say:

“Expending 60% of America’s healthcare dollars on the final 3 weeks of life of the terminally ill adds nothing to the quality of their life and prevents us from doing many positive things, so we are not going to do it anymore. If you are this sick, you are going to die.”

Or a surgeon tell a patient:

“You have a tumor in your prostate. We are not going to operate because 90% of time you are going to die of something else, long before you might die from cancer of the prostate. If we do the surgery, you are more than likely to be impotent for the rest of your life. Further, we will save the system a ton of money.”

Politicians and cancer surgeons are in the business of telling people what they WANT to hear, and then stripping someone else of the cash (tax payer or you and me by way of our insurance provider) to fund the activity.

One of my personal favorites: Somehow the U.S. has wound up with the highest percentage of its peacetime population in prison in the history of mankind. Now, that is a strong statement, considering we had some pretty tough competition from Russia, Cuba, Saddam era Iraq, and China. Still, somehow we pulled it off. And what do we get for our efforts? Plenty of crime and a huge financial liability to fund our massive justice and prison system. But you won’t see any lawyers trying to right this ship (or our crazy divorce and family law which only serves to hurt everyone concerned, except the lawyers), because it works just fine for them and their bank account.

Do I have to mention car accidents (26,347 deaths per year)? Obesity and physical inactivity (365,000 deaths per year)? Tobacco (435,000 deaths per year). Alcohol (85,000 deaths per year)? Yet we spend more money on the war on drugs than prevention for all of these combined, while less than 17,500 people per year die of drug overdoses. But how can lawyers and the rest of our embarrassment of a legal system make money preventing car accident deaths or obesity deaths? Believe me, if they could, drugs would be legal and we would be handing out stiff prison sentences to those who put us in danger with their aggressive driving or fat fuckers standing in line at McDonalds.

Anyway, rant over. The point is our government does things on the policy level with absolutely no consideration towards the cost versus the benefit of any given course of action, only the cost versus VOTES they can garner. You can bet your LIFE the U.S. federal government will not engage in CBA as it regards our energy policy until well after it is too late. I imagine it will be the same story for climate change.

“Lord, grant me the power to change the things I can, accept the things I can’t, and the power to ignore the dumbasses that surround me…”


Mentatt (at) yahoo (d0t) com