No Free Lunch

       The various headlines and my own observations over the last year or so suggest many of my fellow Americans think some things are free. Don't they know any better?

            Somebody is paying for all this "free" stuff, and often it is the taxpayer and consumer at all levels.  But whoever is paying, somebody is. There is no free lunch!

            The next big shoe to drop is when people quit loaning us money, and we have to live within our own means. In the case of federal taxes, these means are considerable. But for those used to "free" things, they may have a hard time going without, or so I think.

            And this adjustment period will probably drag us all down.

            What I fear brings up an old analogy about draining the well dry without allowing it to be replenished. Without water, we have a big problem, and without much future hope for water in the near term, like a year or so, then things begin to look really bleak. Think of the extended drought in the 1930's, or think of an extended financial adjustment to the real world. In both cases, times did and will get hard, again, or so I think. Like real hard, many people with be miserable, with some dying over the probably long haul during the adjustment period.

            Now all is not doom and gloom.  But many Americans may not adjust well to things like rolling electrical blackouts. Practically that means like having electricity for maybe 4 hours a day, and at unforecasted  times. Or the present times when cars can reasonably be expected to last 250,000 miles return to lasting maybe 80,000 miles. And maybe they will get higher mileages, but cost twice as much and be less safe in order to get these mileages. Maybe power steering for cars and trucks will become an orderable add-on for those who can afford it. Maybe the drugs we get in the mail go away for some other system that will probably cost more? And be less reliable. Well, you get the picture. All are examples of "no free lunch" and what the impacts might become as we drain the well of our present day prosperity and high quality of life. 

           For those who think or have been taught that capitalism is a bad thing, well it might be. But in the same vein, the alternatives look even worse, at least to me.  Imagine alternatives like developing and making medicines at a loss, and the probable end of such a system, and the making of the same medicines. In this case the alternative is probably to have some government do the same, and historically it will cost a lot more for the same thing. In this example, the well gets drained, too. And people will begin to die in higher numbers. Ah, the human factor in all this. That is where captialism shines.

            For those who favor "subsidizing" some good idea of theirs, think of that as a "free lunch" idea, too. Somebody is paying for that "subsidizing".

            Now nobody wants to return to living situations like fiefdoms, and warlords, and serfdom for ourselves and and our progeny. But the free lunch idea puts us on this path. And we have seemingly even voted for it. And it is already underway.

            Just how it all sorts out, only time will tell.

            In an earlier time, public policy and the laws and policies and regulations of elected politicians at all levels tended to "replenish" the well of water and life and prosperity.

            But for sure there is no free lunch.