Laura Hollis writes about Thomas Sowell’s eternal question: “And then what?” Thomas asks this question over and over in his book, Applied Economics
Laura stresses that many of the same people who got us into this mess with sub-prime mortgage crisis never asked the question “And then what?”.
Quoting from Laura’s essay:
As Thomas Sowell points out so elegantly, politicians tend to think only of the short term – what will get them through the next election. But the rest of us MUST think about the long term, because we’re the ones who are going to be stuck with it. If we allow ourselves to be distracted by yesterday’s problem and deluded by today’s promises, we will be blindsided by tomorrow’s crisis. And tomorrow’s crisis will be catastrophic.
With all due respect to the Underpants Gnomes, perhaps we need to formalize the Politician Gnomes’ plan for everything:
- Propose a program that will get us elected.
- Get Elected.
- ???