The most important lesson I learned working for that big mutual fund company was the way things interconnect. The economy is like a game of pick-up-sticks. Move something & everything changes. Change something & everything must adjust. Examples are everywhere. Our economy is dependent on illegal immigration. Change (or enforce) the law and ripples occur. Growers can't find cheap labor, crops don't get picked, grocery prices go up.
Some consequences are expected, others are not. Cities put in traffic cameras. Then officials are shocked - shocked I say - when the program actually deters crime. People actually don't blow through traffic lights. The cameras have to be shut down because they aren't turning a profit. The goal wasn't to deter traffic violations, it was to make money on them.
And now we have the unexpected cost of higher gas prices. Road Kill. "As Americans buy less gas, they're inadvertently cutting into the money for highway projects." That's right, it's all interconnected and not in a good way. Our oil-economy has a stranglehold on us. We pull a stick and the whole structure shakes. There are two ways to deal with this. We can behave like addicts and focus on finding more oil at any cost OR we can follow Brazil's example and transform our energy program.
What's our goal? Holding onto what we had or maintaining American's place as the greatest nation on earth?
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