Law of unintended consequences

[dlminehart]

To follow up in an apolitical way on the locked thread about financial meltdown: perhaps this is another example of the law of unintended consequences, or proof that no good deed goes unpunished!

For instance: employment of the handicapped dropped after passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed. The ADA was supposed to guarantee such persons explicit rights in the workplace. Seems that the problem was that companies worried that the ADA might prevent them from ridding themselves of the occasional nonproductive (but handicapped) worker, so many companies responded by avoiding the risk altogether by just not hiring any of them.

In California, relying on emergency rooms to treat the uninsured by forbidding them to turn anyone away has resulted in either extremely long waits at the rooms or, more ominously, the complete closure of emergency rooms at many hospitals.

[jackellis]

I've been indirectly involved in analyzing policy choices for California's effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Turns out it is a lot more difficult than I had ever imagined to come up with options that meet all of the conflicting goals - minimize harm to consumers, avoid "leakage", meet the reduction goals unambiguously, avoid driving away businesses.

The same idea holds true for financial regulation. We don't want to kill off the risk-taking culture that makes this one of the best places in the world to start a new business, but we also don't want the risk-taking process to run out of control the way it has in the financial markets. Differentiating between the two is quite difficult and requires walking an exceptionally fine line.

Then there's housing. Owning one's home is the American dream. But should it be at the expense of prudent lending standards that used to prohibit homes from being bought with no money down?

[dlminehart]

Or, having stringent rent control to ensure people don't get evicted by landlords who figure they can make more from newer, richer tenants. Result, a shortage of rental housing, as new rentals aren't built, and old ones are taken over by owners.

[davethegolfer]

Unintended Consequences

Or raising taxes to raise revenues - and seeing revenues drop due to reduced economic activity and movement of investments to other areas

[leehljp]

In 2006, I was in the Orlando, FL area visiting some friends. As they showed us around, they showed us some low income housing being built. The problem was that the minimum hurricane wind restrictions forced construction material and reinforcement to be such that it drove housing costs (even subsidized rent) totally out of the range of low income people for whom it was intended.


(CAUTION: Having said that - Don't take this to a political slant by bringing in names, blames and strong insinuations just to see if you can do it - or this will be locked/deleted.)

[LinuxRandal]

(CAUTION: Having said that - Don't take this to a political slant by bringing in names, blames and strong insinuations just to see if you can do it - or this will be locked/deleted.)

Ok, a name, but NOT a politician. George Carlin, this is the kind of stuff, that comedians, like him, Jay Leno, etc..... All get material from.

The best I can say is we need to be able to laugh at ourselves and this as we try to avoid something, we always seem to draw it closer.
This is even being discussed in science (quantum mechanics?), observing things and the effects of US observing them.

Or trying to avoid becoming our parents, and becoming them.

Etc, etc, etc.

The best humor contains a bit of truth, and in truth, we should look for the humor. We might all be happier individuals for it.

[jackellis]

Not necessarily humorous, but another example of the law of unintended consequences is what's known as the efficiency paradox that goes something like this: the more energy efficient we make things, the more energy we use. Of course it's because by making appliances, cars, etc. more fuel efficient, we lower the cost of using them.

I have a solution to this paradox, but it's probably more controversial than politics