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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kid Rock who wrote (43144)	11/26/2008 4:59:27 PM
From: TobagoJack	Respond to of 217793

just in in-tray i believe one of the big mistakes people make in this context is to forget about all the things we do not see, vs. those we do see. let us say, Mayor Obama of Hicktown decides that we need to build a bridge to nowhere in Hicktown, in order to improve Hicktown's jobless rate. on the face of it, it would probably be termed a 'success', because 100 previously jobless Hicktowners would suddenly find themselves working on the bridge. the problem is not what we see however, it is what we do not see - namely all the things that could or would have been done instead with the resources directed toward building Hicktown's bridge to nowhere it is impossible to model this, because it is simply not known, and never will be known, what other things would have been done. the only things that are certain are: 1. Mayor Obama doesn't care if building the Hicktown bridge is a profitable endeavor or not. He only cares about being able to say: 'i created 100 jobs for Hicktown' in his next election campaign. 2. had the resources been otherwise employed by Hicktown's private entrepreneurs, the potential profitability of the investment would have been the primary consideration. 3. because Mayor Obama has employed the resources for the bridge building exercise, said potentially profitable ventures will simply not happen. 4. once the bridge is built, Hicktown has a useless bridge, and the 100 Hicktowners are out of work again. Hicktown is now not merely back to square one however - it is actually worse off then before. (unless the bridge is such a stunning work of art that it inadvertently becomes a great tourist attraction).