Paying the Price for Myopia

Reader Tom sent me an article from the New York Times that's topical right about now. You can read "Facing Deficits, Some States Cut Summer School" by Sam Dillon by clicking here. In it, Dillon describes how many hard-pressed states, facing declining revenue in the recession, are drastically cutting summer school programs despite strong evidence that it helps eliminate the "achievement gap" between rich and poor students and greatly improves the retention of academic skills. While America's competitors, particularly in Asia, spare no expense when it comes to education, we shortchange the future to save some money in the present.

The practice is highly characteristic of us. It illustrates the mindset that's primarily responsible for most of the problems we face today, one we see over and over again. In a host of ways it cripples us, affecting business, finance, politics, defense, the environment, health care, education -- you name it.

Tom calls the mindset evidenced in the article "myopia," and I agree. In ophthalmology myopia is nearsightedness, the ability to see things close up but not far away. The American Heritage Dictionary includes a second definition that characterizes the thinking conveyed in the article, a "lack of discernment or perspective in long range planning." It is that perspective that defines how we have gotten into virtually every problem we currently confront.

In business and finance, we languish in the most serious downturn since the Great Depression, mainly because it was decided to get rid of common sense regulations that promoted long-term stability but restricted the mortgage industry from running up incredibly risky but lucrative short term profits. GM persisted in relying on gas-guzzling SUVs and heavy trucks when the long-term price of gasoline could only go up. Corporate CEO's reap multimillion dollar bonuses even when their companies lose money, a perspective reflective of a buccaneer spirit rather than the long-term health of the organization. Employee pensions rather than such bonuses and two million dollar office redecorations are, famously, what have been pared.

Environmentally, because it is initially cheaper to dig coal or drill oil and burn them than it is to build and install solar panels and wind turbines we have neglected clean power for over thirty years. Now we are seeing the true costs of this short-term savings, including hundreds of billions subtracted from our economy and lavished on petroextortionists as hurricanes grow more powerful, drought spreads, sea levels rise, fisheries plummet and the formerly cheap oil inexorably grows more expensive.

In world affairs, it is easy to see the trouble we have created for ourselves by supporting odious friends for temporary convenience. The CIA's complicity in the 1953 coup against Iran's freely elected leader Mohammed Mossadegh and subsequent support for the monarchy of the Shah was followed by assistance to Saddam Hussein in his war against Iran in the 1980s. It should cause little wonder that Iran has been largely hostile ever since. The effects of our support for any anti-Soviet fighters in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1987, no matter who they were, are well-known by now, of course. Osama bin Laden is the most prominent of these.

We have "saved money" by not enacting universal health care and depending on the "efficiency" of the HMO and Insurance Company system. Now we spend 17% of our GDP on health care and have 16% of the populace uncovered while the rest of the developed world spends an average of 11% and leaves no one uncovered. See some stats on that here.

For over thirty years we have reduced real per pupil spending on education to save money. We have watched as our children's standardized scores have fallen in rank against the world. Now we are saving additional money by eliminating summer school and aid to young adults who want to go to college. We do this at the same time we are becoming increasingly uncompetitive in the kinds of manual and old-style manufacturing jobs where such undereducated people would formerly have found employment. Where will they go in the knowledge and tech-based economy of the future?

With all the money we are saving we are on the way to saving ourselves right into the poor house.