The law
of unintended consequences is in full swing.
Some classic examples: the more we increase welfare, the less likely its beneficiaries will become productive members of society; the more the government increases taxes, the less people have to spend, thereby slowing the economy; the more we seek to protect domestic industries with tariffs, the more expensive the goods we buy become; the more we choose not to kill the enemy where he lives, the more likely he will come here to kill us.
Some classic examples: the more we increase welfare, the less likely its beneficiaries will become productive members of society; the more the government increases taxes, the less people have to spend, thereby slowing the economy; the more we seek to protect domestic industries with tariffs, the more expensive the goods we buy become; the more we choose not to kill the enemy where he lives, the more likely he will come here to kill us.
Close to home, recent studies show that prescriptions for effective but
addictive painkillers like oxycodone and hydrocodone have led to
increased deaths from heroin overdoses. Patients too often turn to
cheap and available heroin when they can no longer afford the high
costs of those prescription drugs. The numbers are staggering: 10,574
deaths from heroin overdoses in 2014, an increase of 22 percent from
the previous year.
States
that have legalized marijuana now find that the pot industry uses up
so much electricity, it has stretched power grids to the limit.
Colorado growers consume power equivalent to 35,000 homes; in
California, 1 million homes. Not only do these operations send a
tremendous amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the
projected increase in demand for electricity will have to come from
the burning of coal, environmentalists' Enemy No.1.
Would
anyone like to guess what the unintended consequences will be if
either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump becomes president of the
United States?
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