Wednesday, February 04, 2009

Actions have Consequences

Some actions have consequences that are unavoidable. Attempts to avoid the consequences only make them worse.

A person who goes out on the town and gets sloshed will have a headache the next day. Aspirin might ease the pain slightly, but cannot cure it. The only way to avoid the pain of a hangover is to avoid the drinking binge. Once the binge is binged the clock cannot be rolled back.

That is where we are in the world economy. We had years of binging on consumption laced with debt. The party was a good one, but now it is over and the hangover is here. Wishing we had not gone so hard, is futile.

The hungout person may be tempted to go another binge to drown their sorrows, but that it just putting off the evil day. In the same way, governments should be careful that their policies for dealing with recession do not make the crisis last longer. That happened during the 1930s.

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