Essays in Idleness

Among successful businessman I have known (really: there have been a few), I have admired the quality of self-interested ruthlessness. Not just ruthlessness as an end in itself, which as everyone knows may lead to badness; but ruthlessness in the cause of survival, for the businessman and for all who depend upon him. This is true outside of business, too, in, for instance, the fiscal dimension of politics. An especially ruinous example of the “sunk cost fallacy” plagues the budgets of our once-fair Dominion.

In classical micro-economics, the future costs of a proposed action are the only ones that count. The money already thrown away, achieving nothing, should not enter into calculations. A good micro-economist shows by this that he understands how business works.

Canada’s most successful politicians are notorious for their misunderstanding of almost everything. For instance, they have vomited countless billions of our tax money into a black hole, thinking they can change the weather and contrive carbon neutrality; the costs continue to mount with no prospect of success in view. When will they give up?

A wise and ruthless statesman would cut our losses; but the politician is determined to justify his previous immense spending. He is even willing to blow the next election on this childish behaviour.

I remember, fondly, the old school of political reasoning in these northern parts; when Diefenbaker, e.g., cancelled the Avro Arrow (February 1959). The aeroplane in question would be long retired by now, but the interest on the debt we would still be paying. Of course, the people of our once-fair Dominion punished him for saving all that money.

The proof that God dislikes politicians, almost as much as I do, may be seen in this quandary. No matter what they do, the politicians are soon punished. This has been so in Canada, since days of yore.