November 30th, 2009
This was quoted in an email from a friend of mine:
"... the bad economist pursues a small present good that will be followed by a great evil to come, while the good economist pursues a great good to come, at the risk of a small present evil ..." - Frederic Bastiat
I liked the quote very much, and, upon further reflection, realised that it doesn’t even have to be restricted to economics ... much of life can be described thusly: So much of life is investing a small "evil" now and reaping the greater good later. The trick for the jerks of the world is to reap the short term benefits now for themselves, and somehow offset the greater evil to the rest of us schmucks to pay their bills for a long time after. So far, it’s working out pretty well for some.
I told this to my friend and he agreed. He pointed the conversation back to the point of the quote that it nicely described central bankers: They get to work with extra money before inflation catches up to you and me (the schmucks). Their wealth translates to our financial degradation. It's no secret that I've never liked banks on a personal level (see 1. Banks utterly suck or 2. Banks completely suck or 3. Banks really utterly totally completely unequivocally comprehensively suck for more information). But those rants have been on a personal basis—how they nickel and dime their customers into financial oblivion.
What I realise now is that the real dishonesty goes on at a level truly evil: Our entire economic structure has a sort of low-grade cancer (bigger than a parasite, smaller than a devouing monster) that constantly sucks the monetary life out of us.
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