Human Nature

Life is full of trade-offs. One stays another 15 minutes on the exercise bike in order to work off last night’s dessert. Or, one spends an extra $10 to drive to work instead of taking the bus in order to listen to the drive-time news.

And trade-offs are even more complex when weighed by governments. Can citizens tolerate much higher utility bills in order to reduce the use of fossil fuels to generate electricity? Or can road maintenance be short-changed so that retired pensioners can continue to be paid?

These are economic trade-offs ... but there are also social trade-offs. Can abortion be encouraged at the cost of having to hype immigration to maintain a nation’s population? Or, more topical, can a city insult its minority population with a stop-and-frisk policy in order to save many of their lives and many more wounded? Would one rather be insulted or shot? Strangely, today, many politicians maintain that their minority populations prefer the latter.

So, kind reader, when one sees political trade-offs being made, be they economic or social, that seem illogical ... one can assume that there are other motivations beneath the surface that are influencing these silly decisions.

Such is human nature.