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How Congress, Wall Street and the media traded America’s future for the next short term fix

What’s changed in America is that leaders who aren’t in politics — the very people you’d expect to take a sober, math-based view of these things — are suddenly celebrating short-term thinking as the only responsible course.

Write down the name of every CEO who came to Washington to whine about the breakdown in our political system and ask them what they plan to do next. How are they going to pressure Washington to get the nation’s fiscal system back in order for the long haul? You won’t hear back from many, because virtually none of them plans to do a thing.

Fixing our long-term problems would be painful and unpopular, and they have no stomach for that. There’s the next quarter to think about.

Add to this a press corps that has all but refused to cover our coming fiscal nightmare, and you have what amounts to a conspiracy of silence, or maybe stupidity. Either way, virtually everyone in this country with the power to persuade has lost the willingness to look beyond next Tuesday.

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My guess is that there are no incentives to look long term. If they have a bad quarter or two they’re out. If they have a good quarter or two they get a fat bonus or payday.

In politics, low taxes sell and more free stuff sells. That equals debt and who cares so long as you can pass it off to the next guy.

Dash on January 3, 2013 at 9:04 PM

Well, you can blame all that on the notion of: “The long run is nothing but a bunch of short runs end to end. In the long run, we’re dead.”.

So the current notion is to maximize long term gain by maximizing short term gain. The problem is, the real world doesn’t work that way. You sometimes need to sacrifice short term gain for long term investment.

But politics is a “what have you done for me lately” game. House members need to “pay off” in two years. A President in four.

crosspatch on January 3, 2013 at 9:17 PM

In politics, low taxes sell and more free stuff sells. That equals debt and who cares so long as you can pass it off to the next guy.

Dash on January 3, 2013 at 9:04 PM

And if the next guy is a Republican, that’s just a bonus.

malclave on January 3, 2013 at 9:20 PM

As far as the average Lefty/Dem voter is concerned, one of the core elements of their ideology is to simply not consider the long term. Leftists are considering 1-2 years into the future, tops. It’s all about the “here and now.” Immediate self-congratulation is the order of the day.

Conservatives (and some Libertarians) are considering the future 10, 20, 50 years down the line. This is a huge difference, and one of the reasons why the Left and Right seem to talk “past” each other when debating the issues.

Leftists think conservatives are nuts for talking about “financial collapse” and riots in the streets over entitlements. This is because the Leftists is only looking 1 year into the future. The conservative is looking past that, to the inevitable endgame of failed Progressivism (you always run out of other people’s money).

visions on January 3, 2013 at 9:34 PM

Tucker needs to sell words so he writes stuff.

There was just a big splashy article about the woman behind this

http://www.fixthedebt.org/ceo-council

and all the CEOs et al. who wring their hands at big DC parties.

This is not their problem. The problem is that we have a dumb as dirt electorate, a innumerate leftist press, and a political class that knows you will be defeated if you talk about the many Third Rails.

Romney/Ryan danced on the Third Rails…what did that get them.

Remember. 1. Dumb as dirt electorate 2. Innumerate left wing press and 3. the Best pols Money can Buy

it doesn’t take a pundit to figure that out. And barry knows all that and he and the glitterati Don’t Care….they are doing most excellent…thank you

r keller on January 3, 2013 at 9:38 PM

As far as the average Lefty/Dem voter is concerned, one of the core elements of their ideology is to simply not consider the long term. Leftists are considering 1-2 years into the future, tops. It’s all about the “here and now.” Immediate self-congratulation is the order of the day.

Conservatives (and some Libertarians) are considering the future 10, 20, 50 years down the line. This is a huge difference, and one of the reasons why the Left and Right seem to talk “past” each other when debating the issues.

Leftists think conservatives are nuts for talking about “financial collapse” and riots in the streets over entitlements. This is because the Leftists is only looking 1 year into the future. The conservative is looking past that, to the inevitable endgame of failed Progressivism (you always run out of other people’s money).

visions on January 3, 2013 at 9:34 PM

That’s a really clean and nice way to look at it – fits right into the fact that liberals worship the God of Instant Gratification.

kim roy on January 3, 2013 at 10:25 PM

excellent summary from the article comments section:

The US was founded, wisely and properly, as a state that would secure the conditions under which people could pursue their own material benefits. Contrast that with an entitlement state which seeks to provide material benefits to people. A democracy will always trend toward an entitlement state because the majority of people lack the virtues and wisdom to overcome their instinct for self-indulgence and the politicians can postpone the horizon of electoral consequences of their unsustainable promises by robbing future generations through borrowing and printing money. Programs like Social Security, Medicare, and all the various subsidies (welfare, higher education, bail-outs, etc) that garner votes for politicians are improvident for the nation – at some point, the piper must be paid. The only way to prevent a democracy from sliding into this decadence is to create a compact that expressly denies government the power to provide material benefits to individuals or groups. The Framers believed they had written precisely such a constraint into the Constitution, but the politicians, enabled by the voters, have subverted that covenant. The America of the Constitution is no more.- Hominid CE • 10 hours ago

IMHO the key to liberty was (past tense) private property

As a marketing professional, I can tell you the Republican “brand” is in serious trouble. The three pillars the author mentioned have been replaced by fear, paranoia and callousness.GMoney • 13 hours ago

this comment was hit with the usual (that the GOP is still better than the other side, and that people who will not still support the GOP are giving the country to the opposition).

The Nazis used to make their Jewish victims dig their own graves, before shooting. What did the victims gain

The question for Tucker Carlson, Fox News and the few other outlets that still provide some objective integrity is how can the message of the dominant left in today’s media be counter balanced so that the (generally uninformed and only remotely engaged) public at large understands that America was not built on and cannot survive as a socialist, entitlement driven, nation – Hominid CE • 10 hours ago

the FOX formula: for every statement supporting a conservative idea, the station will provide equal time for support of the opposite, as if all truths are equal. FOX, unlike the competition, provides a training ground for moral equivalence. On FOX, it is a sin to call sin for what it is, unless you also allow a full blown defense of sin, usually as the last word

FOX has redefined Fair and Balanced down, and this substitution for objective truth is being used to label ‘opposition’ as disloyalty to the machine

entagor on January 3, 2013 at 10:54 PM

How Congress, Wall Street and the media traded America’s future for the next short term fix Utopian pipe dreams

Schadenfreude on January 3, 2013 at 11:19 PM

the FOX formula: for every statement supporting a conservative idea, the station will provide equal time for support of the opposite, as if all truths are equal. FOX, unlike the competition, provides a training ground for moral equivalence. On FOX, it is a sin to call sin for what it is, unless you also allow a full blown defense of sin, usually as the last wordFOX has redefined Fair and Balanced down, and this substitution for objective truth is being used to label ‘opposition’ as disloyalty to the machine
entagor on January 3, 2013 at 10:54 PM

This.

If Billy O was really looking out for the people he wouldn’t be such a subjective blowhard. Then there’s Shepherd the “journalist “. Frank luntz is a joke… Or the five – I liked most of the usual crew except for perino and a couple of others IIRC but when said and done the net result is sin doesn’t get called out as you note.

I haven’t watched fox, let alone TV in months. Good riddance.

Would be nice if a new network came out, not to be fair and balanced, rather to be a staunch herald for conservatism and the objective truth.

AH_C on January 4, 2013 at 1:26 AM

The media needs a gut check. I think they double down with their biases because of Fox News. Any news story- Benghazzi, Fast and Furious that is covered on Fox is purposely ignored by the rest of the media, because they refuse to acknowledge any excellence at Fox.

For a year the liberal media has parroted liberal talking points without counterpoints. The ‘tax the rich meme’ has been trumpeted as the solution to debt and thus the Republicans were blocking any legislation that deals with the debt. The cliff fight was all the looney rights’ fault. And now that the republicans have capitulated, the tax hikes are their fault. Today these pathetic networks led by NBC have been boasting what a triumph the deal was for Democrats. Yet everyone knows that only winners were the democrats POLITICALLY. The country will suffer immensely as a result of this 4 trillion dollar debt deal that they have been pushing for.

The fourth column of our state has fueled this country’s demise, and unless that changes- we are seriously doomed. Greece has Germany to prop up its fragile economy. Nobody will be able to save us except ourselves- and after this past November- I know we are hopeless.

Bensonofben on January 4, 2013 at 8:20 AM